


Star Power

by pm_lo



Series: Unpresented [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Alternate Universe, Dubious Consent, Knotting, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Self-Lubrication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-15
Updated: 2016-06-08
Packaged: 2018-05-01 19:58:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 25,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5218880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pm_lo/pseuds/pm_lo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel was napping when he smelled it, head cradled awkwardly on his arm, fingers numb under the pages of the book that hadn't kept him awake. He blinked a few times, not sure at first what had woken him, and then -</p><p>Well, by then Dean had already kicked down the door.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Please** take the dubcon warning seriously. If you have concerns you can message me privately (feelsspiral.tumblr.com).

Castiel was napping when he smelled it, head cradled awkwardly on his arm, fingers numb under the pages of the book that hadn't kept him awake. He blinked a few times, not sure at first what had woken him, and then -

Well, by then Dean had already kicked down the door. He stood, shaking the numbness out of his arm. 

"Dean -" he got out, but that was it before Dean was on him. And a good thing, too, because it was only a few breaths before Castiel was feverish too, caught on Dean's scent, pawing at Dean's clothes just as clumsily as Dean was biting his mouth. It was always the purest like this, right when it started, crystalline undiluted bliss rolling right off Dean's skin. Dean was shaking and flushed and he pulled Cas's hips tight against his and his scent screamed _I need you_ , and Castiel was lost.

Dean shoved him down onto the bed and he landed diagonally, one foot braced on the floor, but he didn't have time to rearrange himself before Dean landed on him. Dean's clothes were - ridiculous, infuriating, Castiel tried to drag them off but Dean beat him to it, their arms tangling as Dean stripped his shirt off then pushed Cas's out of the way so he could get to his belt. The bed scraped across the floor as they fumbled against each other, Castiel panting loudly, or maybe chanting to himself, under his breath, " _dean dean dean dean dean._ "

Dean held him down as he rode him, arms trembling with the effort of holding himself up and Cas in place. Cas wanted nothing more than to roll them, pin Dean down and try his damndest to get to that place inside Dean that was crying out for him, but he let Dean stay in control, working himself on Castiel's cock with shivery single-mindedness. And because Dean was in heat, he didn't even try to last - as soon as his knot swelled up he tied them, and let that (and the sound Dean made, even swallowed away) tip him over the edge. He would've been embarrassed if it weren't utterly perfect.

Dean grunted when he felt Cas's nails dig into his hips - Castiel wondered if he could feel him coming, inside - and pulled his own cock roughly, breathing harsh until he groaned and came all over Castiel's chest. He slumped in place, exhausted, and Castiel tried to keep quiet as the little shifts of Dean's body pulled successive orgasms from him. In heat, it seemed like Castiel could come never-endingly if that was what Dean's body demanded of him. Dean was fidgeting impatiently as he sought a better resting spot against the headboard behind him - but as the pleasure slowly ebbed away, it wasn't enough to keep Castiel awake.

It was morning when he came to, body aching in the well-used way it always did after Dean's heat. Dean, of course, was long-gone, what with breakfast sizzling below, the smell of which had finally woken Castiel. 

But it was just Charlie when he arrived downstairs, the thin morning light making her hair glow as she cursed at the waffle iron that somehow only Bobby could get to work. There were some rashers of bacon and pastries already on the table. "Morning, Cas!" She chirped as he approached.

"Good morning," he said. "Dean's already come and gone?"

She pursed her lips. "I haven't seen him."

"Hm," he said. He loaded a plate with what food was available, crossed the kitchen, and climbed the stairs to the other side of the house. The cabin was mostly chunky wood beams and smooth once-white plastic now yellowed with age, and precious few windows to let in the bleak winter sunlight. Castiel still occasionally uncovered an undisturbed pocket that made his nose itch with accumulated dust. Dean's room was on the second floor, in a corner. He knocked twice. 

"Breakfast," he offered, voice husking slightly as it woke up.

There was a long silence. The food wafted up fragrantly under his nose, making his stomach growl and reminding him how worn-out he felt. Underneath it, just barely, was the faint scent of Dean's heat, weaker now that the first initial rush had passed but still mouthwatering.

There was some clanging, some clambering, and then the door cracked open.

Dean glared out through the tiny sliver of space. There were dark blue half-moons under his eyes, and pillow creases along one cheek. He opened the door just wide enough to grab the plate from Cas's hands, then slammed it in his face. 

Cas opened his mouth to shout something, but Metallica came on full-blast before he could. 

He retreated downstairs and sat at the breakfast table. Charlie didn't say anything as he pulled apart one of her waffles, searching for the least-burnt bits.

*

_Three Months Ago_

There was a long time that Castiel couldn't account for. It was filled with the bile-churning thump of helicopter blades, endless jostling, the sensation of being lifted and slid, IVs, needles, and the smack of tape being unspooled. After that were hazy memories of somewhere soft and warm and comfortable, but for the hard plastic in his nose and mouth. At times he thought he heard someone talking to him. 

It was chilly the day he first truly woke up. He blinked crusted, heavy eyelids, taking in the many tubes hooked into him and the handcuffs keeping him chained to the hospice bed. 

A man in a trucker hat was sitting a few feet to the right, in a wooden chair with a heavy blanket thrown over it. Dean was either nowhere nearby, or he'd been injured so badly it had affected his sense of smell, because all he could detect was a stringent, clean-medicine scent. The man was looking at Castiel as if they'd been chatting for a long time, and picked up seemingly mid-sentence. 

"Lemme get this straight," he said. "Mike and Lucy are brothers, and were in charge of y'all's, uh," he paused, a slight smile tugging at his beard, "infamous... extralegal family business, until Lucy broke worse and got kicked to the curb. Now Mike's dying and wants Lucy dead before _he_ is so your people don't go over to him next; Lucy wants to stay in hiding so that's exactly what'll happen."

Castiel tried to blink at him to convey his lack of ability to reply, but trucker hat appeared unbothered by the unilateral nature of the conversation. "Mike tried to kill Sam to lure Lucy out," he continued, "on account of their, uh, technical... blood relation. Yeah, be glad you missed that one," he said darkly. "They did a DNA test, hoping it was a bluff. Boy drama out the wazoo. Anyway, Lucy tried to protect Sam in his tender-hearted psycho way, but we put a stop to that, and now both Mike and Lucy want some combination or all of us dead."

Castiel tried to talk, found that his throat felt as if it had been resurfaced with sandpaper, and started to cough incessantly. There was a glass of water on the table next to his bed, but trucker hat let him grab for it and just kept talking.

"Now, when Dean figured out y'all weren't entirely on the up-and-up - big shocker there," he said, "he got word to Charlie and she high-tailed it outta there, but not without siphoning off a big chunk of your data. Looks like the whole mission you were on was a ruse - this Zeke guy, or Gadreel or something, he's alive and well. We think he was part of the first wave Mike sent looking for Luke. When Zeke started getting hints in the area but still couldn't close, they figured claiming he'd vanished was a convenient way to get Dean there, Dean being their ace in the hole to find Sam," he said, waving a hand as if to illustrate some elaborate chart, "and thus Lucy. _You_ ," he said, pointing at Castiel, "were the ace in the hole when it came to 'managing Dean'."

Cas coughed, struggling to speak. "I _didn't_ -"

"Some of what Charlie found on Naomi's files paints you as a patsy," trucker hat said, "not knowing anything about this whole mess. And then there's this," he said, fishing something out of his pocket and dropping it on the table - a tiny nest of metal and wires, smaller than his thumbnail. Castiel tried to frown at it, but he couldn't really feel his face. Trucker hat nodded helpfully, and said, "We found it in your molar."

Castiel flinched, and the taste of blood filled his mouth. A _bug_? It sat on the tabletop, winking and innocuous, as a dozen brief snatches of conversation, empty moments of just the whistle of sand or the rustle of sheets, passed through Castiel's memory. The handcuffs bit into his wrists, and his head roared so loud he almost thought he could hear a whining, like a shrill throb - 

It was a heart monitor, connected to him and currently twittering out a furious beat. Trucker hat's eyebrow was up, though it wasn't unkind. Castiel yanked the meter off his finger. "By the time we found it it was defunct," trucker hat said slowly. "Probably all the gifts Charlie left for y'all on Naomi's server. So," he concluded, "we _think_ we can trust you. But some of us ain't convinced."

Castiel looked down at his fist. "Dean?"

"Also," trucker hat said, ignoring him, "there's this." He waved a hand at Castiel's bed.

"What?"

" _You_. You're doin' remarkably well for someone who got gut-shot."

Castiel shifted on the bed. "I don't -" 

"You shouldn't have healed so fast," the man said, eyes narrow and dark. "Especially with us carting you halfway 'round the world, _especially_ with how few real drugs we can get out here - we can't even get Dean's -"

Feet clattering down nearby stairs cut him off, and Sam Winchester ducked down through a low door across the room. Castiel jerked in surprise - he looked gaunt and pale, and his scent was faint, almost a ghost of Dean's, though with the same skunky, alpha tone to it he associated with himself. He ignored Castiel to ask trucker hat, "He's awake?"

"We were just chatting," trucker hat replied easily.

"I'll tell Dean," Sam said, and left again.

Castiel's heartbeat picked up, as piercing as the monitor had been. Trucker hat smirked at him. "Nervous?" 

Come to think of it, Castiel _could_ smell his own anxiety, drifting above his stale, infirm base scent. Was he merely slowly re-adapting to consciousness, or was Dean approaching? He shuffled in the bed, the sheets damp against his skin.

A moment later Sam reentered, this time with Charlie - though not with Dean, and with no explanation. Castiel certainly wasn't going to ask. Charlie sat with her legs straddling a backwards chair, and waved at trucker hat. "Hey, Bobby." 

Bobby nodded at her. Sam leaned against a wall, and Bobby settled more comfortably into his chair. All three pairs of eyes turned on him. 

"So," Sam said.

Castiel cleared his throat. "I take it I owe you my thanks. For not letting me bleed out."

"Don't thank us yet," Sam said. "You're here as something between a rescue and a source of intel."

"I gathered," Castiel said. He glanced between them, but they were all equally guarded, carefully neutral. "I was telling the truth - I had no idea what was going on."

"But you were keeping things from us," Sam said. "My being targeted."

"I had no idea why," Castiel said. "I didn't think it mattered. All I knew was that it would have made working with Dean more difficult, and that was my mission."

Sam shrugged. "Maybe."

"Did you," Castiel swallowed. "Did you find the recordings _that_ took?" He indicated the bug. "In Naomi's files?"

"No," Charlie said.

"Why?" Bobby asked. "You say somethin' on it you don't want us to hear?"

"No," Cas snapped. "I was doing my job, just like the rest of you."

"And now?"

Castiel breathed in, forcing himself not to flinch at the assault of scents, and breathed out slowly. "They were spying on me," he said. "They used me."

"Like you used us," Bobby said.

"I didn't know." Castiel hissed.

"What would you have done if they'd told you?" Sam asked.

"I wouldn't have been able to lie to Dean."

"You _did_ lie to Dean," Charlie said.

He glared at her. "Barely."

"But you're on our side?" Sam pressed. He was a skilled interrogator, simultaneously sympathetic and ominously blank.

"Yes," Castiel answered. "What... how long has it been?"

"A few weeks," Charlie said. "Maybe a month and change."

"Where are we?" 

They sat in silence, not even attempting a veiled reply. He bit back a sigh, and asked, "What do you want from me? How can I help?"

"Tell us what you know," Sam said.

Castiel started to reply, and Dean came in. He didn't look at Castiel, or any of them, just leaned against the wall behind Bobby, crossed his arms, and stared at the ground. Castiel wasn't sure what was more alarming, Dean himself or the way his accumulated aches and pains immediately dimmed in relief as Dean's scent flooded the room. Dean's forearms were taut where his flannel was rolled back. There was tension in the curve of his neck.

He was staring at Dean. Dean was staring at the floor. He looked away. 

Sam and Charlie were sharing a conspiratorial look, and Bobby's expression was like he'd just scented something severely past-due. Castiel coughed, struggling his way back to his answer. "No more than you," he said. "I was sent after Sam -" he glanced at Dean; still nothing - "no background, just a kill order. When I... failed to complete it, it wasn't mentioned again - I assumed it had been given to someone else. I wasn't told anything about this mission beyond the briefing Naomi gave all of us. That's all I know."

"What will Naomi's next move be?" Sam asked.

Castiel grasped for a moment. "We have hundreds of agents, we're tapped into everything... I assume we're off the grid?"

"About as off as you can get," Bobby said.

"Good. That's good."

"What can you tell us about Caroline?" Sam asked.

"Or should we say Hannah?" Dean said.

The low curl of Dean's voice simultaneously startled and soothed Castiel. He regretted it when their eyes caught, Dean's impenetrable and flat. "I... I worked with her. Often. We were close."

Dean looked away again, and the answer curdled, awkward. "How close?" Charlie asked.

"We were friends," Castiel admitted. " _Are_ friends. I still won't help Naomi find you - I want Lucifer and Michael dead for what they've done. ...But I'd prefer not to have to work directly against Hannah."

"That may be a problem," Sam said.

"Why?"

"Garth didn't get out," Dean said.

"What?" Castiel asked. "Is he... ?"

"We don't know," Sam said, eyebrows raised. "But the last thing we do know is he was paired off with Hannah."

"And he didn't - reunite with you?"

"Never checked in after I lit up the batsignal," Dean said.

"You want in on our team..." Sam said, "you get us Garth."

"Okay," Castiel said, nodding. "Okay. ...I need a phone."

"Yeah, okay," Dean snorted.

"How do you suggest I do this?" Castiel snapped at him. "Magic?"

"How about intel?" Dean said. "Where would Hannah be? What would she do?"

"I'm far worse at tracking people than Charlie," Castiel said, "and if _she_ hasn't found Hannah yet I certainly won't be able to without contacting her. She's either off the grid or back at base, and either way, we won't learn anything unless I reach out to her. She won't reveal herself unless she wants to."

"And you can give her a reason?" Sam said.

"I can try."

They mulled this for a moment. Rubbing his chin, Sam asked Charlie, "How long can you bounce a secure call?"

"Thirty seconds, tops."

"I'll need an incoming line too," Castiel added.

Dean scoffed, but Sam said, "We could drive him somewhere. A payphone. Scramble it."

"Maybe," Charlie said thoughtfully. "But it'd have to be far. Can he travel?"

"We'll rig something up," Bobby said.

The silence dragged. Castiel said, "...so?"

*

He left a message on one of Hannah's secure dropboxes with a number and date and time to call back, Team Winchester watching like hawks. By the time he was done Castiel was exhausted even though he'd barely been awake an hour, and slipped easily back into sleep - though he was unnerved by _quite_ how easy it was, Dean's scent all around him like a soothing chamomile.

He tried to relax over the next few days - ate his meals without protest, ignored the cuffs, submitted to Bobby's check-ins. It wasn't the first time he'd been under medical care for someone else's interests instead of his own, but the odd mix of motives was disconcerting. He didn't see Dean again, though every once in a while his scent crept into the room, keeping Cas from sleeping and making his skin itch.

After a few days, Bobby and Charlie uncuffed Castiel from his bed, helped him to a stand, threw a coat over his gown, handcuffed him again, and blindfolded him. "Really?" He asked, as Charlie helped him walk, then take a flight of stairs slowly.

"Really," she confirmed. A minute later a door opened, letting in a crisp bite of air, and they walked across loose, crunchy pebbles for a dozen feet before reaching a car.

It was a long drive to their destination, with lots of twists and turns. When they finally pulled the blindfold off, he had to admit they'd chosen well - in the event he _did_ betray them, all he'd be able to report to Hannah was that he was in a small parking lot, hemmed in by a dilapidated bar on one side and a hill on the other. It was still cool, perhaps a hint of salt in the air, and the sky overhead was low and steely gray.

He and Charlie wedged themselves into the phone booth, Bobby leaning against the door to keep it open. They'd taken the cuffs off, but still, if anyone walked by they would surely take notice. For now that was his captors' problem. Charlie discreetly attached something to the phone mechanism, a little metallic disc that looked like a coin, and started fiddling on her tablet. 

He actually jumped a little when the phone rang, and his palms were sweaty when he picked up the receiver. "Hello?"

"...Castiel?"

A wave of homesickness, foreign and absurd, went through him at the sound of her voice. "Hannah?"

"It really is you," she said, and he could be forgiven for thinking she sounded wondering. "Castiel, I thought -"

"I'm alive," he said. "I was wounded, but I'm okay."

"You're okay? Where are you?"

He hesitated. "I don't know."

Her voice was guarded. "What do you mean?"

"Hannah, I'm with - I'm with Dean, and his associates."

"I see." 

"Things are... complicated," he said. "They're unsure if they can trust me."

"I understand the feeling," she drawled. 

"Hannah, you were working with their colleague," he said. "Garth."

"Yes."

He glanced at Charlie and Bobby, their gazes pinned on him. "... Is he - ?"

"He's alive."

Charlie and Bobby jerked, sharing a quick look. "He's unhurt?" Castiel asked.

"For the most part."

Bobby glared at him, as if Hannah could see it through the phone. "Do you have proof?" Castiel asked.

She sighed, and there was nothing but rustling for a moment. Then - "Hey y'all," Garth said, sounding a bit beleaguered but cheerful. Charlie and Bobby slumped in relief at the sound of his voice. "According to my watch it's the 15th of August, and, ah, I think that's all I'm gonna -"

There was more rustling, then Hannah again. "There. Is that sufficient?"

"Hannah -"

"They want to trade," she surmised.

He avoided the question. "Where is he being held?"

"...with me."

"With you?"

"I haven't, ah," she said. "Checked in."

He frowned. "Hannah, it's been weeks -"

"It was chaos in Baja Sur," she told him. "I caught Garth trying to abscond with the case file, then I got a message from Naomi that we were under attack and you may have been compromised. The next thing I heard was that you were missing, presumed dead."

"So you - ?" 

"So I told Naomi that my position was insecure and I would touch base when it was safe," she said. "We've been on the move since."

Something flickered in his chest. "You didn't believe her?"

"I wanted to keep my options open," she said briskly.

"Hannah," he choked out.

Bobby made an impatient motion, and Hannah unconsciously echoed his terseness. "This works perfectly," she said. "Put me on with Dean, we'll arrange the trade."

"Hannah, no, I -" He looked down, away from the others. "Just give them Garth."

There was a long pause. "...what?"

He swallowed. "I can't go back."

"What are you talking about?"

"Naomi's been telling people I've been compromised," he said. "I've been away for weeks."

There was a garbled noise on the other end, like a sigh. "You'll tell them -"

"What? That I'm not a liability? That my insubordination on _two_ missions, with the same targets, isn't cause for concern?" He shook his head. Hannah said nothing. "I'm... I'm broken, Hannah. I'm not an asset anymore." 

They both knew what Naomi made of defects.

"I can help you," Hannah said lowly. "Get you out."

"That's too risky," he said. "For both of us. The entire agency will be looking, and splitting up just widens Naomi's data set. And if she finds me it could lead back to them." Bobby and Charlie's faces were inscrutable.

" _Them_ ," Hannah scoffed.

"I have to stay. Besides," he added, and smiled, just a little. "I want to see this through."

Hannah growled. "Dean," she said flatly, "if you think this is going to work, you -"

"Hannah," he said. "Torricelli."

She gasped. Charlie frowned in confusion, and Bobby just scowled more deeply. "Castiel," she said.

"Truly, Hannah," he said. "It's okay."

"You - you just want me to let him go?"

"Yes."

Bobby leaned over to speak into the receiver. "Preferably not in the middle of a busy street. Kid's still about ninety percent puppy."

"I'll make sure he has adequate provisions," she snapped. "Castiel... "

"I have your number, Hannah," he said, trying to keep his voice clear. "I'll try to stay in touch."

"Be safe," she told him. He wasn't sure she'd ever said that to him before. 

"You too," he said.

The line went dead. Charlie tapped on her device some more, and Bobby sighed. Castiel hung up and shoved his hands in his pockets, fingers starting to tingle in the cold. 

"Now we wait," Bobby said.

*

At the end of the first day when there still hadn't been any news on Garth, Bobby awkwardly showed him to a bedroom upstairs, shoving a handful of pain meds at him as he left. It would seem that until they heard one way or another, he was somewhere between a prisoner and a member of the team - but there was no doubt in his mind they'd subdue him if need be, and once deposited in his new room he was conspicuously avoided. He hadn't seen Dean once.

After a few days Charlie and Bobby started harassing him again for intel, though at least with a less interrogatory tone. He ended up spending most of his time in the dining room with them, panting his way through basic exercises in an attempt to get his mobility back - walking slowly around the dining table, grasping it for support, or just practicing being able to sit upright without getting dizzy - while they showed him everything they'd managed to collect on his family so far and he corrected them and filled in the blanks.

"No, he doesn't answer to her," Castiel said, nodding at the giant, string-covered board they'd made of one of the walls. He pulled his arm tight across his chest, hissing as his joints slowly, painfully opened up. "Put him near Rachel."

Bobby scowled at the board even as Charlie swapped the pictures into the correct order. "It's not enough," he said. "We're not getting past middle management."

"I'm sorry," Castiel said shortly. "I didn't even know Michael _existed_."

Bobby stared at him, hard. "Ain't he your father?"

Castiel looked away. "I never met him." They said nothing, and he cleared his throat. "And I didn't know he was - I wasn't aware that he was... significant."

Charlie sighed. "Seems like that was the point," she said. "That's how everything was structured, it all just feeds into this... black hole." Indeed, their chart was a topless pyramid, all the major players they or Castiel knew about feeding into an empty peak where, presumably, Michael's face would go. Charlie paced in front of it, then suddenly came to a halt. "Huh."

"What?" Bobby asked.

She'd approached the board, tapping her lip with her marker and giving herself a dusty black pout. "Just because you didn't know Michael existed doesn't mean you don't know anything," she said. "It just means we have to focus on what you _don't_ know."

"I don't understand," Castiel said grumpily.

Bobby got it, though. "Negative space," he murmured, and Charlie grinned at him. "The breeze in the closed room." 

Castiel frowned. "What does that -"

They were all struck silent as a thick, heady scent suffused the room. Castiel blinked, nearly paralyzed with it, as a delicious wave of excitement started in the soles of his feet and swept through him to his fingernails. It was like Dean's scent - which he'd barely caught at all in the last few days - but better, deeper, _wetter_. Each breath scattered sparks through his mind, smoldering and bright. He had the stomach-dropping sensation of falling, and he knew he needed to find Dean right away.

"Dammit," Bobby growled. He and Charlie were sharing a pained, faintly disgusted look. Castiel breathed out, shaking his head, but there was no escaping the scent - it was everywhere.

He must have been going mad. How could Dean be in heat? It wasn't possible - and yet the others didn't seem shocked. They _were_ staring at him, though, probably debating whether he was a risk, if it would be safer to quarantine him. He wouldn't blame them.

"Guys," Sam said, taking the basement stairs two at a time. "Garth just called." He was smiling until he breathed in, and immediately wrinkled his noise, adopting the same awkward expression as Charlie and Bobby. They all looked at him again, then back to Sam.

"That's great," Charlie said. She picked up a napkin from the table and held it to the lower half of her face. "He's safe?"

"Uh, yeah," Sam said. "C'mere, I want to make sure we can get him to one of our safehouses."

They basically ran back downstairs together, and Bobby shoved himself up from the table as well. "Well. Welcome to the team, kid," he said.

Castiel nodded, dazed. "I'll be in my room."

"Uh huh," Bobby said, and left.

Castiel locked the door behind him, then tried to bury his head under a pillow. He eventually fell asleep, though it was fitful - the smell saturated his room in swells, unpredictable and drugging. It got worst right after nightfall, when it grew so sharp it was as if Dean was just outside Castiel's room, touching the door - though that had to have been in Castiel's head, atrophying under the assault of frustrated longing. He didn't even know which room was Dean's, though he had his suspicions from late nights pacing the hallways, telling himself it was part of his healing.

Lying in bed with the smell practically sticking to his skin was torture. He leapt up, planning to shove the dresser in his room against the door, or perhaps ask Bobby to chain him up again. He braced a palm against the doorframe, shaking.

And then there was a single knock.


	2. Chapter 2

_Present Day_

No matter how many times Castiel showered, he couldn't get Dean's scent out of his skin.

He rolled his shoulders and bounced a knee, trying to focus on the spreadsheets in front of him and telling himself it was all in his head. It must have been; he was researching with Bobby and Sam, pouring through long, complex financial documents, and his brain must simply have been grasping at straws to stay awake. But he was so sure he really could smell it, rising up from where the sweat collected on his skin, aerosolized and mesmeric.

Bobby glanced at him. It was probably just because he was squirming, not because he could smell it. Could he?

It was mocking him, the tickling in the back of his nose that felt like Dean's scent, hot and soft and seeping up to his brain. Because even if it were there, left behind somehow after Castiel's violent cleansing, Dean wasn't talking to him. He didn't see Dean, at all, twenty nine days out of the month, and those twenty nine days had become a routine at this point.

Everyone in the cabin shared the same mission: scrutinizing the two giant organizations after them for anything they could use to their advantage. Until they found something, they'd be stuck in hiding. He still wasn't sure exactly where they were - his call to Hannah had been the last time any of them had gone more than a few feet outside. He was fairly sure Bobby was getting most of their supplies from a giant cellar underground, and any supply runs were rare and closely guarded. Only Charlie had access to the internet, and only via her personal computer, which was heavily encrypted. 

It was, in a way, somewhat amazing that Dean managed to avoid him so completely. He knew he must have been interacting with the others - Bobby wouldn't let him get away with not helping, not that he thought Dean would want to. Plus, the others sometimes talked about research he'd dug up or theories he had.

Castiel never heard or saw any of this in person. He just waited, dread a constant weight in his stomach, for the one night a month that the knock would come at his door.

When Dean was in heat, the abruptness of his drunken desperation after weeks of the cold shoulder - it was like diving into a cold pool on a hot day, like digging his nails into an elusive itch. And he could almost enjoy it, lose himself to it, if he didn't also get glimpses, barely there under the battering of the near-rut it induced in him, of... _Dean._

Brushing his hands away from his hips. Eyebrows twitching together, frustrated. Never making more noise than the heavy shading on a harsh breath. Eyes never meeting his.

And he would remember. 

He tried to let Dean use him, not move at all or touch him more than was needed, let Dean treat Castiel like a plastic knot if that's what he wanted, what he needed to be in control. He tried to ignore his own furious inner alpha telling him he wasn't pleasing his omega - not going hard enough, deep enough, to satiate him. Of course his alpha had also noticed that his omega wasn't speaking to him outside his heats, and though Castiel rationally knew that they stemmed from the same issue - Dean didn't _like_ him - his inner alpha didn't understand that logic. It wanted to throw Dean on the bed, try to win him over with sex, hold him when they were knotted and done, lick the precious sweat off his temple, infused with his mate's gorgeous scent, and lay there until Dean's belly was swollen with pups. (The only miracle in the entire mess was that they were still able to get birth control wherever the hell they were.)

In the morning he would wash flaky dried semen and slick off his pubis, and try to scrub away the rest of the scent.

It was _awful_. The first time he'd been as swept up in it as Dean was, nearly as bad as when he'd first presented - that unexpected, overwhelming hormonal rush, the utter confusion and inexperience. He hadn't spared a thought for everything they'd been through, how _Dean_ must have been feeling, until they were done. Until Dean had shut himself in his room for the last days of his heat, suffered through them alone, and continued ignoring Castiel right up until the next one.

The guilt was just about suffocating. He was sure he could work on patching things up with Dean if it weren't for their cursed biology forcing Dean to come to him when he least wanted to. They'd had some of Dean's heat suppressants stockpiled at the cabin, but had burned through them while Castiel was recovering. 

He'd tried locking the door once. But then he'd heard Dean knock, smelled something twisted and sour he was almost certain was confusion, and then fear. He'd known opening the door would be taking advantage of Dean, but _not_ opening his door would just mean Dean’s heat getting worse and worse, until Dean might beg. That would be Dean's worst case scenario. So Castiel had let him in. 

He'd thought about asking Bobby to imprison Dean during his heat, but that felt even worse. 

And to be honest, he wasn't even sure it would work. 

"Boy," Bobby barked, snagging his attention. "Where's your mind got to?"

"Sorry," Castiel said. "What was that?"

"I said, law enforcement," Bobby said. "How deep are you in with them?"

"The family?" Castiel asked. "I don't know. I assume very. I haven't ever heard of a problem."

Bobby grumbled something nonverbal. "Why?" Castiel asked. "Do you have someone?"

"Yeah," Sam said, running a hand through his hair. "We were thinking maybe he could cause some problems for them, but if they have someone in the same office -"

"Where is he?" Cas asked. "I can't know for sure, but there are some cities..."

He trailed off at Bobby and Sam's awkward looks. "Nevermind," he said coolly.

Bobby leaned back in his chair. "No one in our network's gonna be the answer," he said. "It's just too big for us to nibble around the edges."

"So what," Sam said. "Find Lucifer? We've been trying, but there's just as little to go on there. Maybe less."

"How big is your network?" Castiel said, plowing through the same aloof faces. "Roughly. Just so I know what our resources are."

After a weighted pause, Bobby said, "A few dozen."

"Not all bounty hunters? Support? Resources?"

"A mix," Sam said evenly. 

"That's impressive," he said. "Our family didn't often work with outsiders, but when we did it was usually soloists, maybe a team. Not many groups this big."

Bobby snorted. "Started as just - can be useful to have someone on the other end of the line if you need to, ah, pass a background check. Me and my phones, that was it."

Castiel nodded, and so did Sam, who added, "Yeah, and I figured it could be useful to actually throw in together - cross-country, feed each other leads, have people like Charlie focusing on one area like tech or supplies. But -"

He paused, ill at ease. "What," Castiel asked.

"It was really Dean who brought it all together," Sam said, rubbing the back of his neck, smelling stale and overripe. "He's - he's never more at home than working a job. He never gave it up or tried to do anything else." Bobby was staring at Sam, whose voice had gone slippery somehow, but he kept going before Cas could make anything of it. "Dean made it into a family."

"I see," Castiel said quietly.

"What city's your family the smallest in?" Bobby said. "If that's a weak link, we can see if we have anyone there. Press on it."

"Yes," Cas said. He drew some paper close to him and fumbled for a pen, glancing up at the landing across the room where the hallway to Dean's room was visible. He rolled the pen against the callus on his finger. 

He looked down at the paper, and began to write.

*

Charlie's computer area was a single desk, chair, and a computer with a single screen in the middle of a dry patch of floor just off the dining room. The emptiness around it - even the area rug didn't extend into the nook she'd claimed - made it look as if anything non-electronic was scared to approach. Castiel braved it anyway, offering her a plate of noodles once he'd come into her peripheral vision."I would not expect this to be the cleanest area in the house."

Not looking away from screen, she suggested, "No paper? All digital?"

"You're our computer nerve center. I thought there would be wires everywhere, and... more screens."

"Bangs and smoke are signs of ineptitude, not experience, Harry," she murmured.

"What?"

"What smells?" She asked, wrinkling her nose and finally looking at him. Her face lit up when it landed on the plate. "Hey, dinner!"

"You've been at work a while," Castiel said. He handed her a fork with the plate. "I thought you could use it."

"Mmm," she grunted, slurping up a forkful of noodles. With her mouth full and eyes finally closed, her shoulders unhunched slightly and her face smoothed out. After a moment she re-opened one eye. "You're not eating?"

Castiel picked at his own plate. "What're you working on?"

"Negative space," she said through a messy mouthful. "That theory -"

"Oh, right. What was that about?"

She drummed her fingers on the desk and swallowed. "Well, it was everything you said about Michael that got me thinking about it. They've done so much to cover him up, but everything leaves traces. What proves Michael's there by _not_ being there? What can we learn about him from what we _don't_ know about him?"

Castiel let some noodles dribble off his fork. "And? What have you found?"

"Nothing," Charlie said, slumping in her chair. "I mean, we've found _things_. Funding streams that lead nowhere. Cities where your family should have a presence but don't seem to. Some programs you've mentioned, I've done some digging on, that floundered and maybe shouldn't have. But..."

"Nothing concrete?"

"No," she said, squinting balefully at the screen. Her scent was sharp, like days-old sweat and frustration. Charlie was good practice for scenting - honest and open, no disconnect between her scent and how she was acting or talking to dissect. Bright, slightly scratchy warmth was happiness; a prickly, rain-like smell was confusion; her current scent, shifting to a deep, plummy baseness, was... huh. 

"What's on your mind?" He asked.

Her eyes had taken on a hollow look, like she wasn't really seeing him. "I was thinking about Michael and Lucifer," she said slowly. "They're... brothers, right?"

"Yes?"

She returned her gaze to him. "You think they love each other?"

"Uh..."

"This whole shebang..." She rolled her knuckles in her palm, fidgeting with energy. "It's boiling over now because of Mike's health, but you think it never came up before?"

"Came up how?"

"Maybe they rumbled before now. Maybe they've been looking for each other longer than this. Or maybe, I don't know -" She leaned back in her chair, scanning the ceiling. "Dean said Luke said something like, he expected you and your kin to fall in line once Michael was dead."

"Yes. He might be right," Castiel said. "Obedience is important."

"So maybe someone already did. How _did_ he evade Michael for so long?"

"A mole?" Castiel asked. "How would Lucifer possibly recruit a mole while he was trying to stay hidden?"

Charlie shrugged. "Maybe someone went looking for him. It's possible not everyone in your family was as happy to obey as you were."

"I wasn't - happy to obey," he said, irritated.

"Sorry," she said, picking up her plate again and eyeing him keenly. "You just - around here, you seem a little at loose ends."

"We're stuck in a cabin on the run from at least half of the world's hired guns," Castiel said flatly. "I'm stressed."

"Sure," she said, nodding. "Plus you tried to kill Sam. And none of us really trust you. And then there's the whole Dean thing -"

"Can we - not?" 

She giggled. "My god, you two are made for each other. Stoic, bristly, emotionally-repressed killers - what could go wrong?"

"Charlie - "

"Okay, okay," she said. "But I think this is a good idea."

"What, the mole?"

She nodded. "Anyone ever... seem a little _too_ perfect? Unblemished record, totally unremarkable?"

Castiel exhaled slowly. "We're encouraged to be unremarkable."

"Hmm," she said. "Well, think on it. I'll see what I can find."

"I'll clear your plate," he said, but she was already completely refocused on her workstation, dead to the world.

The tap water in the sink felt crisp and clean on his skin as he rinsed the dishes. _Unremarkable._ His identity had always been comprised of two things: the family, and Unpresented. What was he now? Broken? An asset? An alpha? 

And if there were a mole, it would mean his family might never have been what he'd thought they were. It wasn't as if he'd been holding onto any hope of a return, but it was another thing to consider that it might never have really been there to begin with.

Uncomfortably, the thought of what he would do after all this sidled to the forefront of his thoughts. It was an unfathomable, colorless blank, and a chill settled into his bones. 

He brushed the last of the grime off the plates, reflecting on a story Anna had told him when he was a young child, about an evil beast who had locked an omega princess away in a dungeon. Her alpha heroine found her by scenting her out of the maze of dungeon rooms, and then the princess had gotten them back by scenting the path her alpha had taken. There had also been some bit about a silk cape and gold coins that he couldn't remember. 

He hadn't thought of the story in a long time. It had featured prominently in his adolescence, when he'd first been coming to grips with the idea that an entire sense would forever be beyond his reach. Now, on the other side of the story, it felt like parts of his childhood were being ripped apart anew and stitched back into a shape with no name. He'd wanted so badly to scent back then, and had grown into a man learning how not to want those things.

The sink gave a foul belch as the last of the intermingled meals swirled down the drain.

*

Bobby's cabin was situated at the base of a hill, tucked into it tightly on two sides and the other two by a thick, impenetrable wood. Castiel had spent his first few weeks here slowly learning the house and immediate grounds - its terrain, its natural defenses, and those Bobby had worn into its nooks and crannies, cameras and sensors and tripwires. The walks had started as just a part of his PT, but eventually he'd grown curious, both for fresh air and to see what was what. He'd followed Bobby's growled admonitions not to wander too far, but he had his guesses as to what lay beyond the hills and woods and the narrow car path leading away from the front stoop, the one they must have taken him on the day he'd called Hannah. The trees were pale green and orange, webbed over with moss and age, the earth thin and rocky, and the skies gray more often than anything else. By how isolated they were he'd guess there was nothing but woods, mountains, empty fields, or maybe even water around them for miles.

None of it would withstand a direct assault if Michael or Lucifer found them, but that didn't mean there weren't precautions to be taken - a minute's warning, even a second's, could make a difference. With those odds, if Castiel could tighten their defenses a degree, it would be worthwhile. 

Plus, doing something with his hands helped calm his nerves. Walking the property, taking in the angles, the sightlines, it was reassuringly linear, nonverbal, and repetitive. He'd already trimmed a tree to give them slightly better access to the southeastern view, tightened the caulking on some of the windows, cleared some brush from an older escape tunnel, and caught a faulty battery on one of the alarms. There may well have been nothing left to do at this point, but he enjoyed the routine.

He checked each window and doorway; the several roofs, staggered on what looked like several additions; the hedges along the seam where wall met soil; and the basement, sunken and modular, small windows showing the veins of the garden and a sliver of sky.

And a knife laying on one of the windowsills.

He approached it slowly, getting out his phone. It was ringing before he could think better of it, though for a second he couldn't remember whose face he'd touched on the screen and panicked at the thought of talking to Dean. Then Charlie's voice came through. "Cas?"

There was a piece of paper under the knife, fluttering. He frowned. Into the phone he said, "Alert, I have a -"

He opened the note. _Scrapes away too easy. Needs to be replaced with polycarb._

It wasn't signed. There was indeed a thick build-up along the edge of the knife, matching the caulking he'd used last week. He frowned at it, the note, and the window. Charlie sounded incredibly anxious through his phone. "Cas? You have a what?"

"Nothing," he said slowly. "False alarm. Sorry I bothered you."

"Cas?" she asked. "What is it?"

He hung up, ran his thumb along the knife's edge, then checked the window. The seam was too pliable, he'd have to reseal them all with something stronger, or else someone likely could shave down caulking and sneak in without setting any of the alarms. Everyone knew he'd been making the rounds on the house, making a hobby out of checking their security, but almost everyone else would have just talked to him about it.

It was the first thing Dean had said to him outside of his heat since Cas got out of medical.


	3. Chapter 3

Dean wasn't himself when he was in heat. Castiel had to remind himself of that, because it was tempting to read into the single-minded frenzy that was all he'd known of Dean in person over the last few months. Even if there had been scattered clues to his true state of mind, Castiel doubted he'd have been able to detect them, trying to keep himself under control with Dean's heatscent saturating his thoughts. 

It was easier to think clearly in the cool-down, though he rarely wanted to - that was when the guilt swept in, bitter and inescapable. Normally he did his best to feign sleep.

This time, though, he scanned Dean's face as subtly as he could. It had been over a week since he'd found the note, and hadn't seen Dean once in that time. He wasn't sure what he was hoping to find - openness? Progress? Relaxation?

He didn't seem anything but exhausted, and he was fidgeting on Castiel's knot. Shame flooded him at how transparently desperate Dean was to be done. "Should be down soon," he said stiffly.

Dean sighed and grunted something that sounded like _good._

*

"And this makes it impregnable?"

"I call it one-way, 'cos I ain't a hoity-toity crime prince," Bobby drawled.

"One-way is less specific," Castiel said. He peered down the giant tunnel, one of several that led out of the house. Their steep downward slope and numerous choke points - landings that fanned out around a common, narrow drop-off - made it nearly impossible to invade inward. They were designed strictly for the occupants to leave. "Someone could still be waiting for us on the other side," he added.

"Yes they could." 

"That doesn't bother you?"

"Ain't a not-dying tunnel," Bobby said. "It's a not-dying-up-there tunnel." 

"Fair enough," Castiel said. They were there to clear brush to keep the tunnel functional, though at the moment he was finding it a little difficult to stand - the moldy smell of the cave was almost overwhelming, but since Bobby didn't appear to be having any trouble he assumed it was just another pitfall of his underdeveloped senses. He'd do the work now, grab some advil for the headache later.

"Can I ask you something?" Bobby said, positioning himself on the opposite lip of the landing.

"What?"

"You seem awfully comfortable with the idea of killing your kin." Castiel said nothing. "That's where this's gotta end up, right?"

Castiel shrugged. "No odder than throwing in with my enemies in the first place." 

"Yeah, but you had something to ease the way on that," Bobby said. There was an uncomfortable silence, and then he said, "Forget I said that." 

"Agreed." 

"But seriously," Bobby said. "Maybe the shooting and killing don't bother you. But what about what's next? You got plans for when this is done?"

Castiel pulled a weed out with vicious efficiency, tossing it down the tunnel, where of course they'd have to clear it later. His head pounded. "One thing at a time," he said.

Bobby clucked at him, shaking his head. "Fair enough."

*

Castiel was walking the grounds on one of his security rounds when he noticed something odd about one of the trees. It was blinking.

He approached swiftly, watching the blip of light resolve into the shape of something wedged into the bark - round where it emerged, sharp at the anchor. It wasn't big enough to be an explosive, so he got in close, examining it, phone already in hand. "Bobby? Do we have anything incoming?"

Footfalls filled the line as Bobby ran to the surveillance room. "Ahhh - nope. Everything's fine."

Castiel frowned. "Can you see me? I'm in the northwest quadrant."

"I... don't see you. No."

"Dammit," Castiel swore, glancing back at the nearest camera. "Reboot the systems and get Charlie. We might be -"

"Ah, just gotcha," Bobby interrupted him.

Castiel frowned deeper, glancing down at himself. He hadn't moved since calling Bobby, though he had leaned just slightly to the left when he'd turned. He waved. "You see that?"

"Yup," Bobby said. "And the systems look fine, no tampering I can see."

"There must be a blind spot," Castiel said pensively. He leaned closer toward the tech wedged in the tree. If it wasn't an explosive (at least, one that could do any damage to himself or the tree), it could be tracking, recon maybe - 

It opened at an experimental prod, slim metal petals folding back to reveal a note inside. _Widen each camera's axis by 1 degree._

Bobby whistled. "Good find, kid. Though I gotta say, if your folks are gonna sneak in here through a spot that small -"

"Yes," Castiel said distantly. "Still. It's... good to check."

"Mmhm," Bobby said. "Well, good fire drill anyway." There was a clatter as he hung up.

Castiel's hand shook as he crushed the note in his palm.

*

"Yes!"

Castiel didn't really startle at loud noises, but he felt a blowback of adrenaline at Charlie's outburst nonetheless. "You found something?"

"Oh man, oh man -" she panted, fingers flying over her track pad. "Okay, so a few days ago I found an email deep in Naomi's files - I'm thinking they're instructions to an agent embedded with a foreign agency. Translating some of the details took a while, but it looks like Naomi wanted something wiped from the agency's drive. And of course, nothing's _really_ erased from me, so -"

"Charlie." Castiel said.

"Right - photos," she said, and Castiel's screen flickered as Charlie sent the files his way, a few dozen window panes popping up. "Your family wanted these photos erased, bad. Anything familiar?"

Castiel sifted through them - there were a lot of casing photos, buildings he didn't recognize, a fair amount of surveillance photos, and then -

He stood, the computer clattering as he shoved it onto the desk. Charlie looked up, frowned, and wheeled over to him. "What is it?"

He swallowed. Tried again. 

"Anna." 

"Anna?" Charlie asked.

 _Anna_ \- the sister that had never really just been a sister. His caretaker, his guide, his mentor, the closest thing he'd ever had to a real friend. And then she'd never come back from a mission and, well, that was life. But that had been -

"Twenty years ago," he choked out. In the picture she was just a reflection, hunched over in a hoodie, blending in to the background shown in the window pane next to the target of the surveillance photos. But he knew it was her, could read her even in the pixilated curve of her spine. "And this is from -"

"Eight years ago," Charlie said, voice slow as she began to pick up the context clues from his. "So - you thought she - and she could _still_ be -"

"No," Castiel said. "This is something. I'm sure of it."

He leaned in, tracing the handful of red pixels that hinted at the swirl of her hair beneath her hood. The picture was too grainy to make out her eyes, but Castiel had seen her tracking before. 

"Anna's alive," he breathed.


	4. Chapter 4

After months of healing and exercise, Castiel had regained most of his basic mobility. But it was an illusory achievement - he still lacked the reflexes, strength, and muscle memory he'd had before, and it kept him up nights, dreaming of Naomi and her troops swarming the house, and Castiel powerless to stop them.

It didn't make the advanced PT any easier. He was less than halfway through a boxing circuit, perilously near his breaking point, when Sam's scent joined his. "How's it going?"

"Slow," Castiel panted, circling the heavy bag.

"Yeah, well," Sam said. He shambled over to the filing cabinets that also lived in the cabin's makeshift garage/office. "We should all be doing it. I feel like all this sitting around is making me atrophy."

There _was_ a pallor to Sam's gaunt good looks that was somewhat off-putting. "You... look like you could use some fresh air."

He smiled grimly. "Maybe later." 

Castiel watched as he rummaged through some of the dustiest-looking files. "Does Bobby have a new lead?"

"Just some clippings from a few decades back he thought might be helpful," Sam said absently. "You know Bobby - or, I guess you don't."

"I get the feeling he likes to cast a wide net," Castiel said, squeezing some water into his mouth from a Lucozade bottle.

Sam didn't answer, distracted by the papers. Castiel shut the water bottle, jiggered it between his hands, and put it down. "Uh, Sam?"

"Hm?"

"I, ah," Castiel rubbed his sweaty palms on his shorts, and meandered closer. "I haven't - since we got here, I haven't, uh - what Nick said -" 

Castiel's humiliating display seemed to have finally caught Sam's full attention, and he turned a faintly amused smile on him. "Are you trying to apologize? About the hit?"

"...Yes." 

"Dude," Sam said, leaning against the cabinet. "Do not worry about it."

Castiel felt his eyebrows rise. "Really?"

"I am apparently the son of a psychotic rapist _and_ arsonist and on the run from _two_ of the most formidable criminal organizations on the planet," Sam said. "A hired gun having tried to kill me is honestly the least of my concerns right now."

"I see," Castiel said. "Well, I -"

"And honestly, if you even knew how many people _I'd_ been working," Sam said, starting to grin in earnest, "and then - oh, like Charlie?"

"Charlie was one of your bounties?" Castiel asked, genuinely surprised.

Sam laughed raspily. "She siphoned so much from a megabank I lost track of how many zeros there were. But then we ended up having so much fun tracking her down we decided to team up instead." Castiel laughed along with him. "So, yeah, we've all tried to kill each other at one point or another. Garth can be surprisingly feral. Me and Bobby went at it this one time I took some bad shrooms. And me and Dean..." He merely trailed off, whistling.

"Well... thank you."

"Mmhm," Sam nodded. "I'll tell Dean you apologized."

"No!" Castiel said, just a little too close to a shout, before amending: "I mean, uh, you don't - don't have to."

"You don't want him to know?" Sam asked, arching one thin eyebrow.

"I just... don't want to bother him," Castiel said.

"Uh huh," Sam said, yawning. "Well, I'm happy to stay out of whatever weird courtship ritual you two are doing."

"It's not -" Castiel huffed, taking a deep breath. "I'm glad we could make amends, Sam."

Sam's nod caught on a cough, and he hunched over with it before waving weakly at Castiel and leaving the room, making some sort of gesture for tissues or water. Castiel watched him go and sighed.

*

Castiel crouched down behind a low hill a few miles from the house, scoping it out through his rifle's sight and checking his comm. "Bobby? Do you copy?"

Nothing. He shrugged and ate up a few more yards, careful to stay close to the ground. The full moon gave plenty of light, favoring his fictional assault. His goal was to avoid every countermeasure he knew about - which should have been all of them, though he knew how close Bobby played things to the vest - and still get stopped by the house's overall surveillance system. A little final exam for his newfound hobby.

It was stressful, and exhausting, especially when he still wasn't fully recovered from his wound. But the fact that Charlie had found a lead on Anna - that every day might be the day she found something that would lead them to her - had Castiel more amped than he'd been since getting shot. He had energy to burn.

"Bobby?" He tried again. It would be frustrating if the comms didn't work - he wanted to be able to relay any findings in real time. "I've dodged the first round of countermeasures," he muttered, voice hushed out of habit, "but this next round should, hopefully, get tricky."

There was a crackle, then a reply.

"Someone's cocky."

Castiel's heart pounded in his throat. "Dean?"

"Yeah." The voice coughed. "Sam asked for Bobby's help with something, so he asked me to take over." There was another pause, static on the mic or perhaps the echoes of impatience on the other end. "That okay?"

"Yes, yes. Fine." Castiel's voice was dry and squeaky. Cursing himself, he cleared his throat and said, "As I was saying. I've made it past the outermost countermeasures. Breaching the secondary perimeter now."

"Go to town."

"Am I showing up on the monitors yet?" He was coming up on the tree line fast.

"I don't see anything," Dean said, already sounding bored. "You wanna tell me where you're at or is that part of this game?"

"It's not a game," Castiel said. "It's a practical way to test for holes in our security system."

"Uh huh. Feels like the world's most boring round of call of duty."

"Says the one who's been sneaking out and criticizing all my improvements," Castiel muttered. 

The silence that followed was so pronounced he could feel it in his ears. Castiel threw himself behind a tree, breathing hard, and considered calling the exercise off for the night; he already felt scattered and distracted, which would be of no use to the test. But he shook his head, forcing himself to concentrate. If he'd oriented himself correctly, this tree line would be the very edge of the outer ring of woods - ahead and to the left it opened into a flat meadow, completely unguarded and visible on screen at headquarters. He could double back and try to stay cloaked in the forest, though much of the terrain to his right was set with a nasty series of bear traps. Bobby did not fuck around. 

Dean sighed, sharp and abrupt in his ear, and there was just enough goading petulance to it that Cas rashly darted out toward a rocky slope just behind the tree line, where he was fairly sure there were no traps or cameras. It was less a true hill than a large chunk of slate barely covered by soil, and slippery with lichen. Halfway down he stumbled, was forced into a run, and only had a second to see a thin red line at his ankle-level before skidding to a stop just before the sensor. He wasn't fast enough to stop a pebble scattering over it.

"Hmm," Dean said in his ear. "Got a blip in the second sector. Getting sloppy?"

"Wasn't me," Cas said casually, face scrunched in a silent curse. "Must have been a rabbit." 

"Uhhuh," Dean said, voice distant with concentration. He was undoubtedly checking all the nearby cameras, of which there were many - if Castiel leaned even a few inches in either direction, he'd surely show up on the monitors - and he could almost feel the phantom sensation of Dean's eyes scraping the soil and the shadows around him.

He considered his options. He could go up, but the tree shaking would give him away. He could wait until Dean became distracted, but there was no way to tell when that would be. That left only down - if he belly-crawled for a few minutes, he'd likely be able to proceed out of sight and beyond the worst of the traps until Dean would no longer have a bearing on him.

He tried to stay quiet, but some of his heavy breathing must have made its way back to Dean. It wasn't truly part of the exercise - assailants who tried this wouldn't be using comms linked to the house - but of course Dean honed in on it anyway. "This is a lot to go through."

"It's important."

"None of it’ll matter if they find us. A fifty-man raid, hell, maybe just a dirty bomb."

"I know. But it could give us time to escape."

Dean made a short, harsh noise that dripped with scorn. “You’re not a fan of playing defense?” Castiel asked.

“Defense is one thing. Sammy’n’I’ve gone weeks holed up in the kind of places that make Bin Laden’s cave look like Sesame Street. _This_ is...”

“What?”

“Eh.” It was barely a sound, the conversational equivalent of a shrug. _Drop it._

Castiel did. He dragged himself forward by his elbows, his face flecked with dirt. The silence stretched out, until Dean said, “These people. Lucifer - this psycho thinks he _knows_ Sam. Tried to make it sound like - like our mom was one of you.”

“I'm sure she wasn't,” Castiel said. He knew how Dean felt about Cas's family, and about his mother.

“Me, Dad, Sam? We been on our own a long time,” Dean said. “We're free agents, we go our own way. Sam and I, we've taken some big fish.”

“You think - Michael and Lucifer are responsible for that?” Castiel asked. He pushed himself to his feet, tucked behind a small rocky hill.

“Hell no,” Dean said. “They're just some assholes that - thought they knew my mom a while ago.”

Castiel said nothing for a moment, acknowledging. “Still. It must be... unnerving. It's personal.”

“I've done personal before. This...”

“Dean?”

Castiel focused intently on his earpiece, not looking where he was stepping, and brought his foot down on something that sent him rocketing backwards. He slammed halfway into a tree and was thrown to the side before hitting the ground hard. 

His head was spinning, but it was likely just the impact and shock, not a concussion. It must have been one of the crowd controls - mines without the actual explosion. He was lucky he hadn't stepped on one of the real ones, but the sound and the movement would have certainly clued Dean in to his location by now. The test was a success - or a failure, depending on perspective. 

Castiel thunked his head against the tree and tried to catch his breath.

"Guess the system works," Dean said. The line made his voice sound rough.

"Yes," Castiel said. 

He waited, but there was only ringing in his ears.

*

It woke him in the middle of the night, and for a moment he thought it was Dean's heat - because that was the only scent that had ever woken him. But it was weeks too early, and the scent was wildly off.

His head still ached from the practice run, but as he shook off the last cobwebs of sleep, Castiel sat up in bed and realized the scent slowly filtering into the room was something totally foreign. He climbed out of bed, wondering why he wasn't more panicked at an unknown scent in the house; yet the scent was clearly solitary, and somehow instinctually unthreatening. It was low, a little jarring, but more drifting than aggressive. He opened his bedroom door, padded down the hall, and kept his nose up, eyes mostly way closed. The scent was thready but pervasive, delicately pulling his thoughts apart, a sinewy splinter.

It was sadness.

Down the hall from his room was the landing that ran around the main atrium, looking down on the living room. It was almost dawn, but Charlie looked like she hadn't been to bed yet. She was bent over her computer, detached from the larger monitor and cradled in her lap, staring at something he couldn't make out. 

She wasn't moving, and he didn't hear anything or smell salt. But the scent all over the room was unmistakable; an aching, dark blue melancholy. He wrapped a hand around the rail and stared down at her, at a total loss.

That was when he saw Dean on the alcove across from him.

Dean had clearly already seen him. He looked tense, as if prepared for Castiel to shout something, or dart downstairs, he wasn't sure. But he relaxed as Castiel met his gaze steadily, and he seemed to realize there was no imminent action to prevent. Dean lifted a hand, made an abortive gesture between himself and Charlie. Castiel nodded. Dean could handle it.

He was slow to return to his room. By the time he'd reached his doorframe he'd heard the creak of the leather sofa and the brush of fabric. He leaned his forehead against the wood frame and closed his eyes.

"Hey, hey - shh." 

Charlie's breathing was shaky, steadily off-kilter as if she weren't reacting to anything in particular, as if whatever was wrong just kept coming and coming. Her voice was even quieter. "I miss her."

"I know," Dean said. Castiel abruptly felt ashamed for eavesdropping. He could hear what sounded like Dean's palm rubbing the fabric of her sweater.

"She's all alone there - and I can't - I can't _see_ her," Charlie said, voice rising now.

"I know," Dean said, and Castiel opened his door, suddenly desperate to give them their privacy. It didn't stop the image in his head of Charlie in Dean's arms, wrapped tight in the dark room. 

Charlie had started to cry. "I know," Dean whispered. "I know."

*

Dean came with his face tucked against the headboard.

They'd left the lights off, and now it was almost too dark to see. The sweat was itchy on Castiel's skin as it dried. His heart thudded sickly in his ears. 

"How are you?" He asked. 

Dean stiffened. "Peachy."

Castiel licked his lips and shifted slightly underneath Dean, who pulled away, putting his weight on his knees so Castiel's movement wouldn't affect him. Castiel subsided. "Thank you for your help the other night," Castiel said. "With the - test run."

"Uh huh."

"It was... good," he said. "To be working with you again. Like in Todos."

Dean pulled back, a slow stretch that would've felt amazing if he hadn't seen Dean's eyes, dull and far-off. "Pretty sure this is nothing like Todos," he muttered.

"Yes," Castiel said, taking a deep breath. "I think often how much I regret not telling you -"

Dean finally looked at him, puzzlement and something darker seeping over his features. "What?"

"- All that I knew," Castiel said. "I had thought - if you could excuse my supposedly making an attempt on _your_ life, you could -"

"Oh, fuck no," Dean said, and he started pushing back in earnest, squirming away against Castiel.

"Dean?" Castiel was too dumbfounded to react, though he instinctively moved out of Dean's way.

"Are you fucking serious?" Dean said, forehead shining with sweat. "You're trying to talk to me? _Now?_ "

"I just feel that -"

"What?" Dean spat. Their scents were broken and burned, like a fire at a chemical plant. "You think my _guard's_ down? I'm suddenly gonna wanna talk _feelings?_ "

"You won't talk to me otherwise -" 

Dean rose up on his knees and pushed against Castiel's shoulders. It shouldn't have been surprising - of course anger and adrenaline would have made his own erection wilt faster, and Dean Winchester had a greater capacity for pain than anyone he'd ever met - but Castiel still gasped as Dean tore himself off Castiel's knot well before it had gone down. It stung, a deep, throbbing burn that echoed in his chest, leaving streaks of blood behind, and Castiel tipped over to his side, knees clutched against his stomach. "Dean -" he croaked.

"Fuck this," Dean said, grabbing his jeans and storming out.

Castiel remained, hunched over, in the slimy, damp sheets. He rocked in place for a while, thoughts a flat line, before jumping up, suddenly furious at himself for everything he'd done and every time he'd second-guessed it. He took a shower, scrubbing furiously, threw on the bare minimum of clothes, and knocked on Bobby's door.

He was still shaking too hard to notice how quickly Bobby answered. "Cas?" He asked warily.

"Bobby, I need your help," he said, pacing straight past him into his room. "This situation with Dean is untenable. This is your house, your group - I need to know - "

"Yeah, look, kid, your teenage drama's gonna have to wait," Bobby said darkly.

"What?" It suddenly occurred to Castiel that Bobby looked bad. Worried. And that they weren't alone in the room.

Sam was on the bed, shaking, drawn, pale, and seemingly insensate. Charlie was in a chair next to him, one of his bony hands clasped in both of hers, her face tear-streaked. Motionless, prone against the sheets, Sam looked appallingly skinny, surely skinnier than he'd been in Todos, or before that.

"What's wrong with him?" Castiel asked. 

"He's detoxing," Bobby said.

"From what?"

"We don't know."


	5. Chapter 5

"We don't know," Bobby growled, in a tone that suggested, _hence the problem_.

"Dean -" Castiel stuttered. He couldn't stop looking at Sam. "He should - we should -"

"Y'all were _indisposed._ " 

"I'll go get him in a bit," Charlie said, voice thin like she'd been crying. "It'll be - it'll be easier if we already have a diagnosis by the time we get him. He'll tear this place apart otherwise."

"A diagnosis?" 

"You got any idea what this is?" Bobby tossed a vial at him. Castiel grabbed it and held it up to the light - it was dark, thick, almost like - 

"This can't be... blood?" Castiel asked.

"That's what we thought, but it ain't," Bobby said, sitting down at a desk strewn with books and two laptops. "Or at least, not _just_ blood. Boy's seemed like he was in bad shape since we got here, but he kept telling us it was a bug, maybe stress." He gestured at the vial still clutched in Castiel's hand. "I found a half-dozen empties in his room after he collapsed - looks like he'd been squirreling them away, tryin' to self-detox."

"He wasn't sick in Todos," Castiel said, sitting at the table.

"And he wasn't doing this before then," Charlie said firmly. "I would've known. Dean would've known."

"Any chance this is related to that pit you and Dean pulled him out of?" Bobby asked.

Castiel swallowed, horrified. "Lucifer wanted him there. He could've - if he wanted him under his control..."

Bobby grimaced. "Then get to reading. Gotta figure out what he's on if we're gonna figure out how to ease him off."

Castiel nodded, his problems with Dean so distant now. He pulled one of the thick tomes towards him, and settled in for a long night of research.

*

Charlie slammed her book closed, pulling Castiel not from sleep but the dull trance he'd been in, staring at the words on his page without taking them in. "Nothing?" He asked, rubbing at a sandy eye.

"No," she said sadly. They were alone, Bobby having left to fetch some more books from the basement. "Blood's common in spells and warding, but I haven't seen anything that looks like... this."

Sam was tossing and turning on the bed. 

"Why wouldn't he tell us?" He asked. "If not me, then you, Bobby - Dean?"

Charlie smiled in a watery way. "You really are new to the group, huh?"

"Dean," Sam moaned. After a frozen moment, they both jumped from their chairs and ran to his side. His eyes were closed, fluttering beneath his eyelids.

"He's dreaming," Charlie said, worried. She laid a hand on his forehead. "Sam? Can you hear me?"

"Dean," Sam slurred. "Gotta... gotta get outta here..."

"Shh, no, it's okay," Charlie told him, trying to sound bright and calm through her tears. To Castiel, she said, "Wait here, I'm gonna make him a cold compress."

"Okay," Cas said. The door snicked closed, and he put a tentative hand on Sam's shoulder. He was twitching like he might start thrashing at any moment.

"Dean," Sam said again, low and crisp now, though his eyes were still closed.

"It's Castiel, Sam," he said. "Are you okay?"

"Dean," Sam demurred. He tried to swallow for a moment, clearing his throat, then muttered, "I killed her."

"We've all killed a lot of people," Castiel said.

"Burned her," Sam said. "I burned her, Dean."

"What's he saying?" Castiel hadn't realized Charlie was back in the room.

"I don't know." Sam jerked when she laid the cool towel across his forehead, then seemed to settle. She ran her fingers through his hair, smiling at Cas.

"Charlie?" Sam said in a much smaller voice, and when they looked down at him, his eyes were open.

"Hey," she said quietly. "You had us worried, jerk."

Sam's lips quirked in a small smile. "Sorry."

"Seems like you were partying pretty hard in that bunker," she said. "You wanna tell us what you were on so we can dry you out right?"

Sam frowned. "Charlie?"

Castiel and Charlie exchanged a worried look. "Sam?" Charlie asked. "Are you with us?"

He licked his lips, blinked at her slow and sticky. "Dean," he whispered.

"Yeah, Dean's just upstairs, he's coming," Charlie said. "Sam, concentrate. What have you been taking?"

He licked his lips again. "Alpha blood," he whispered.

Charlie frowned at Cas. "That's it? Alpha blood?" Castiel shared her confusion - for one thing, blood's iron content made it toxic when ingested, and for another, unless his nose was malfunctioning, Sam _was_ an alpha - why would drinking another alpha's blood affect him? 

"Alpha... in rut," Sam said.

"You were trying to... induce a rut?" Charlie asked, confused.

Sam shook his head. "First... reagent..." he coughed out, before succumbing to full-bodied coughs that racked his too-thin frame. Charlie shushed him and turned over the compress, trying to cool his fevered skin.

"So you made something with alpha blood in rut?" Charlie asked. "Sam? What did you do?"

"Strong..." Sam whispered, eyes going muzzy, and Castiel had a sickening flash of memory from Todos, just before he'd been shot - Sam wedging the heavy steel grate back into that tunnel. How impossible it'd been.

"Strong," Sam whispered again, "good, so good..." Charlie shushed him once he'd trailed off into half-words. Castiel stood to greet Bobby when he re-entered.

"Anything?" He asked. Charlie stayed with Sam, who seemed to be descending back into his fever.

"He says the first ingredient was the blood of an alpha in rut," Castiel said. "He'd been working in alchemical. I'm guessing they enhanced it somehow, perhaps with the goal of harnessing extra strength, durability... Lucifer's a beta, but I can see him having alpha envy."

"Some kind of unholy be-the-best-you-can-be," Bobby said. "Alright then, we know what we need."

Cas blinked at him. "What's the point if we don't know how to alchemize it?"

"One step at a time, kid."

"Wait, wait, wait," Charlie said, standing and wiping her hands with a dry cloth. "We're gonna make _more_ of the stuff that did this to him?"

"We don't get it for 'im he could go into shock and stroke out, or have a heart attack," Bobby said. "Look at him."

"Exactly," Charlie hissed. " _Look at him._ "

Bobby shook his head. "Can't risk detoxing him any other way. There's a reason you don't do it yourself. It's gonna be tough. He should've told us about it." Bobby twisted off his hat and ran a hand through his hair. "But that's a Winchester for you."

"Tell me about it," Charlie said. Castiel shuffled uncomfortably.

"Okay," Charlie said. "Then there's our _other_ problem - how do we get alpha _rut_ blood?"

Bobby glanced between them, an eyebrow raised. "I'll leave that to you two."

Charlie scoffed incredulously. "I haven't rutted in _years_. You know how it is when you're unmated."

Both turned meaningfully toward Castiel. "I'm not mated," he said.

Bobby and Charlie's eyes rolling could cut glass. "Even if I were," he said, "I thought rutting - it's twice a year, based on -"

"Who the fuck knows," Bobby sighed. "And there's pills you can take, but if our rinky-dink pharmacy don't have suppressants, they definitely won't have artificial rut. No, we're gonna have to go old wives' tales on this one."

"Bobby," Charlie said dubiously. "Why don't I like the sound of that."

*

He started by running them on treadmills. Castiel shouldn't have been surprised that there _were_ treadmills in the secret, heavily armed remote cabin; of course Bobby had prepared for the possibility that it would have been unsafe to even venture outdoors.

Charlie, on the treadmill parallel with his, did not seem to share his idle contemplation. "What," she huffed, "is this supposed to do?"

Bobby shrugged, checking the rudimentary heart monitors he'd rigged them to.

" _Shrug_?" Charlie yelled, then immediately had to take a break to get her breath back, mouthing to Castiel, _shrug?_ He wasn't sure how to answer without another shrug, so he just faced forward.

"Y'know. Alphas. Running. _The chase_ ," Bobby said, twirling his pencil and frowning down at an old book.

Charlie's face went red at that, but her anger didn't seem worth sustaining given her increasing difficulty breathing, so she just kept running.

Down the hall there was the sound of a door opening, and Castiel forced himself to stay staring ahead as Dean slowly came into view. Charlie had finally gone to loop him in a few hours ago; when he'd first come to see Sam, Castiel'd thought he'd put on extra-heavy blockers to mitigate his heat-scent, before realizing that stress must have prematurely dampered it.  


"This ain't working," Bobby said, chucking his pen across the room.

"Thank god," Charlie said, slamming the red button on her treadmill. Castiel too slowed to a halt. Dean glared at Charlie, pacing angrily, and she rushed to clarify, "Just, I mean - we'll figure it out, Dean -"

"You're sure there's nothing else we can give him?" Dean asked Bobby. "Some kinda... alpha blood methadone?"

"Yeah, I'll just call down to the ER," Bobby drawled.

"Well, what else is on the docket?" Dean asked.

"I doubt this'll work, but... y'all hungry?" Bobby asked them. Off their blank shrugs, he said, "Great. I'll grill up some steaks."

"I'm a vegetarian!" Charlie cried. Dean glared again. "Of course - for Sam -" she added.

"Terrific. Hope you like 'em bloody," Bobby said, heading for the kitchen. Dean grabbed the book he'd been reading and sat down at a nearby table, pawing through it but looking more like he just wanted to occupy his hands.

"This isn't gonna work," Charlie said after a few minutes, scrubbing her hands down her face. "Ruts aren't like heat, they don't come every month like clockwork whether you want one or not. They're a lot more sensitive to stress, overall health, partner..."

"So in other words, the opposite of this?" Castiel asked. Charlie bit her lip and looked at Dean. 

Bobby came back in, bearing two sizzling steaks still in the pan. "That was fast," Castiel said.

"Like I said. Hope you like 'em bloody."

Charlie's face when the steak squelched onto her plate pretty much summed up Castiel's feelings, but for Sam, he would've choked down anything. An hour and some serious gastrointestinal distress from Charlie later, they were nowhere.

Bobby's next idea was to make them fight. "Seriously?" Castiel said.

"Yup," Bobby said. "A little alpha-on-alpha competition. Get the blood pumping, show your competitive side?"

"No offense, Charlie," Castiel said, "but seriously?"

"Yeah, I'm gonna have to agree," Charlie said. "We can do a friendly spar, but anything that would get _him_ competitive would straight-up kill me."

 _Hmph_ , Bobby said, face screwed up in disappointment. "Don't give me that look!" Charlie shouted, as Dean walked in behind her with an armful of heavy books. "We tried running, we tried red meat, we can try every old wives' tale in the books, but you rut when you rut, and everyone knows it's when you think conditions are perfect for mixing up pups. And nothing about _this,_ " she said, waving a arm around the dreary cabin, "says _perfect._ "

"Well I'm sorry the mood lighting ain't up to your standards, lil' alpha," Bobby snapped. "What did you have in mind?"

"I don't -" Charlie said, running clawed fingers through her hair, before she saw Dean and stopped. "Huh," she said, then glanced at Castiel. "Let's try this," she told him, though she was walking toward Dean.

 _Try what,_ Castiel meant to ask, but he was forestalled by Charlie pushing Dean's chair back from the table and leaning down to kiss him.

"Aay, oh, woah -" Dean bleated, leaning back in his chair, but it was unnecessary, because Castiel already had Charlie's shoulder in his grip, pulling her away. There was a faint coppery taste in his mouth that he couldn't remember from the steak.

Charlie seemed to have lost interest in Dean already. "Did it work?" She asked, scenting Cas eagerly, then drooping. "Damn."

"Of course that wasn't gonna work," Bobby said, sounding entirely too bored considering how hard Castiel's pulse was pounding. "You got him mad. Good job."

Castiel's fingers were still clenched in Charlie's shirt. He tried to look as blasé as Bobby, but only managed a nonchalant growl.

Charlie was eyeing him consideringly. Behind her, Dean was pale. "I have another idea," she said.

*

"I am not comfortable with this," Castiel repeated, as Charlie tightened the rope around his wrists.

"Uh huh," she said, tongue poking out of her mouth as she tested the restraints around his ankles and the one keeping his head against the back of the chair. "Just trust me."

Dean said nothing. He wasn't tied to his chair, which faced Cas. Charlie had taken him aside just after announcing that she _had_ a plan, but not its contents, and they'd chatted secretively for almost five minutes. Castiel had paced the whole time, filled with foreboding.

When Charlie finished on Castiel's restraints, she sauntered toward Dean and then behind him. From Castiel's position, seated and tied, she seemed a bit... _more_ than usual. Not taller or stronger, of course, but as if she was walking with more purpose, shoulders flat and chin high. Her eyes had gone hooded, ignoring Castiel, as if he wasn't even there. She only looked at him once she'd circled Dean's chair, come to a stop behind him, and then let her hands rest on Dean's shoulders.

Castiel shifted in his chair. He'd guessed her plan would be something like this, but he'd thought it would be just as hackneyed as her attempt before. But this -

He couldn't read anything off Dean's scent, because he wasn't really reacting to Charlie at all - he was just facing Cas, still and relaxed. But Charlie's scent was spreading, thick and aroused - he couldn't place it at first, the arousal, then tried not to; tried not to notice the same rough alpha streaks in it, so similar to his. It wasn't raging, but it was definitely there as she threaded her fingers into Dean's hair, neon-painted nails disappearing into the thick brown strands, getting her scent on him and leaning down to scent him in turn. It made no sense, he knew it didn't, and yet Charlie smelled like any posturing, mate-hungry alpha as she let her nose touch his shoulder, then the bare skin of his neck, dragging it up, soaking in his scent. The chair creaked a little as Castiel made a fist.

Dean's scent wasn't aroused - though there was a tinge of that heat-scent still in it, making Castiel strain finely, like his frame was tensing and releasing in aborted waves - but he was _not reacting_ to Charlie - he was just sitting there, _calm,_ like a proper omega, like he was _letting her_ get her hands all over him, as if he was acquiescing to the claim - and that was it, wasn't it, she was claiming him, right there with Castiel just a dozen paces away, strapped down, so close he could imagine just how Dean's sweat would feel sliding along his fingertips, the heat rising from his skin, the sound he'd make when his lips would part, but it was Charlie's hands on him, all over him, pulling his hair to tip his head to the side, exposing his neck, running her short nails all along it, then leaning down, baring her teeth -

There was a distant cracking sound as red flooded Castiel's vision, and all he knew was the pain of the rope cutting into his arms and legs, the strain in his muscles as he tried to get to Dean, teeth aching as he ground and snapped them, a growl low in his throat promising the hell he'd unleash. The scents faded at some point, but he still felt feverish, and he wasn't sure if he was trying to get out of his chair or sag back onto it.

Then something cool hit his face. "Buddy? You with us?" That was Bobby.

He shook his head, wishing he could wipe some of the sweat out of his eyes. Then he blinked again, because the room looked different - Charlie was wheeling off a tray covered with medical equipment, for one thing, and Dean was gone. "Bobby... what?"

"You did it, ya big, strapping alpha," Bobby said. He was holding a cold towel to Castiel's head. "Went into rut. Technically."

"Technically?"

"Eh, a mini-rut," Bobby said. "Almost gone already." He puts a hand on Castiel's forehead, and he tried not to lean into it despite being pathetically grateful for the cold.

"Oh, yes," Castiel said, licking dry lips. "I barely felt it."

Bobby slapped him on the shoulder. "Thanks, kid. I know rut's no fun."

Charlie snorted as she came back into the room, snapping off latex gloves. "Try mauling a dude while trying your hardest to think of ScarJo so you get your alpha on." She winced as she made eye contact with Cas. "Ah, I shouldn't've said that. Might have to keep this going."

"Going?" Castiel said, as Bobby unwound the ropes on his chair.

She shrugged. "We don't know how much blood we'll need. We may need you to rut again."

Bobby was making weary _don't_ motions at her, and she winced again. "Sorry. I meant - maybe not!"

Castiel slumped in his chair, scanning the room. "Where's Dean?"

No one talked. "Great," Castiel sighed. He stood, stretching stiffly, and said, "I'd help you with the next step, but I... think I need to sleep this off."

"Yup," Bobby said. "Get some sleep, plenty of fluids. We'll take it for a while."

Castiel's room felt odd when he entered. This was only his second rut ever, and wasn't even a _real_ rut, but he didn't remember coming down from the last one because he'd been asleep (unconscious, actually, from Dean knocking him out). It felt like it was fading as fast as it had came on, like a quick burst of steam over boiling water, but it left him feeling drained. And there was nothing in the world he wanted more in that moment than to fuck Dean with him on his heat too. 

Like he been, for the last few months, forcing himself not to enjoy it all the while.

He fell face-forward onto his bed.


	6. Chapter 6

"All the things we can't get out here, and you have _goat's blood_?" Dean demanded.

Bobby shrugged. "The jerky makes good rations. We're just lucky I could finagle enough blood out of it. Not sure there's gonna be enough left."

They looked down at Sam, who was sunk deep into the bed, sleeping peacefully at last. It had taken weeks, and they'd gone through enough iterations of the draught that they'd almost run out of the blood Cas had provided, but finally, the latest batch seemed to be working. There was a tiny red dot on Sam's arm, near-invisible on the flush of his skin; a victory flag, barely a pinprick wide.

Dean exhaled roughly. "Goat's blood, Bobby? Sulfur, yarrow? What were they up to?"

"I think it's best we focus on what needs doing now." Bobby turned to Cas, adding, "We're gonna need more blood from you, kid."

"What?" Castiel yelped, before realizing - this was just the first dose, they'd need to wean him off. "Fine," he amended. Dean stared at Sam. 

"And Dean, just because we can use this stuff to stabilize him doesn't mean weaning him off's a guarantee," Bobby said. "I'm not wholly sure what this stuff _is_ , what it was meant to do. We want to make sure we can cure Sam for good, we gotta -"

"Take down Lucifer, I know," Dean said. "Working on it."

"We've made some good headway in the last few days," Castiel offered. "I think Charlie is close to finding a former, uh, colleague, who may have faked her -"

"Great," Dean said, sounding preoccupied as he left the room.

"Well, keep me updated," Bobby said, and sat down, scribbling some notes on a ledger. Castiel fought with himself for a moment, then followed Dean.

He called his name lowly. Down the hall, Dean stiffened, then turned. "Yeah?"

"I wanted to, ah. Apologize."

"Thing with Sam ain't your fault," Dean said. He was somehow meeting Castiel's eye without really looking at him.

"No, I meant - going into rut. It was, well, awful," Castiel said. "I don't think I fully empathized before. I felt very vulnerable, so... I'm sorry, for - the last time, when I tried to talk to you. I think -"

"Hey," Dean interrupted him. "Don't apologize. You want things to get better? Help us find Lucy." 

"Yes, I am. Trying," Cas said. 

"Good," Dean said tiredly, walking away." Let me know when you find something."

"Okay, Dean," Castiel said quietly.

*

The dining room was never as tidy as Charlie's workstation, but when Castiel walked in he found it absolutely buried under books, print-outs, computers, and more. Charlie's brow was intensely furrowed. "What's going on?"

"Lead," Bobby said, eyes still scanning his ledger. 

"Really?" Castiel asked. He pushed some papers aside and sat next to him.

"Yup. Looks like your man might've been trying to sniff out Lucy long before all this started."

"How so?" 

Charlie _mm_ ed. "Not sure," Bobby said. "Found something about _tamping down_ on him in an email from a few years back, she's trying to suss out what happened."

"How is Sam?" Castiel asked.

Bobby finally looked up wearily. "He _looks_ better. Color's coming back, breathing's better..." He trailed off. "Be nice if he woke up, though."

Castiel looked down at his lap. "Yes."

"Boy's beside himself," Bobby said, staring down the hall where Sam's room was. 

Castiel opened his mouth, then shut it. "Is there -"

Charlie gasped and pushed back from the table, her chair skittering across the ground as she stood. Her eyes were locked on her screen, her mouth open. "What?" Bobby asked. 

She jerked toward the sound of their voices, then back to the screen. Her skin was deathly pale. Castiel stood up.

"Nothing, nothing," she said, hurrying to close her computer, eyes big and horrified as Castiel drew closer. "Don't -"

He pushed her away and opened the laptop. 

The camera was aimed downward, lights above and around it harsh and medicinal, the glare off the autopsy table almost enough to obscure the fine edges of the crater in Anna's skull. He wasn't sure how he recognized it as Anna - the photo was taken upside-down, and much of her face was unrecognizable, an eye and most of her nose and temple gone to the jagged hole, which looked like it had been cracked open by a boot or a tire iron. 

Maybe it was the horror on Charlie's face.

"Anna," he said. It came out level, but Bobby still flinched.

"It -" Charlie started, stopped, tried again. "It's a - she was tagged as a Jane Doe. It's from Sibiu. A few years back."

"Could be faked," Bobby said from over his shoulder. Castiel hadn't noticed him getting up. "Just have to -"

"She'd already faked her death," Castiel said. "We all thought she was gone."

"Needed to hide from someone else?" Bobby suggested.

"You don't leave a body," Castiel said. He sounded distracted, even to himself. "You do it in a bomb, or a fire, or -" He stopped, numb. 

"How'd you find this?" Bobby asked.

"Same lead," Charlie said quietly. "It - it looks like Anna might've been looking for Lucifer. Just like us."

"And he got her?" Bobby asked.

Charlie hesitated.

Castiel laughed. "Michael."

"I guess..." Charlie glanced between Castiel and Bobby, but neither gave her an out. "Based on some of the - my guess is he didn't want Lucifer dead until... it was on _his_ timetable." 

Bobby said nothing. Charlie looked like she might cry.

"We're nowhere," Castiel said, backing away from the desk. "We have nothing."

He left.

*

Castiel had known Anna was dead. He'd had to deal with it when she'd disappeared twenty years ago. That pain and loss had been felt before, were needless now. He was an adult. They killed people. It happened all the time.

But the photo -

It was a stutter-step in her death. A reshuffling of dates, perhaps, but it knocked Castiel sideways regardless. It had to be accounted for.

If she'd been alive, Anna could have helped him with it.

The last time he'd seen Anna he'd been a teenager. Another lifetime, it felt like. Even though he'd known her as a fledgling adult, he still associated her strongly with his childhood. And he'd been asking questions that echoed back to then, opening doors to dusty attics in himself, shockingly hollow and dim. What would he do after this? What would he be? 

He hadn't realized it until he'd seen that photo, but he'd been thinking that maybe he could've been like Anna.

He was sitting in a car. He wasn't sure when had he gotten in, or gone to the garage in the first place. He flexed his hands on the steering wheel, a rev inside like he _was_ the car, roaring to life. He knew he couldn't go past the perimeter of the house, knew it was a huge risk, if he was seen, if he crossed a camera somewhere, if by some gruesome miracle the family had tracked them nearly this far.

But. 

He needed. He needed to do _something._

The lights flicked on. Dean was entering the garage from the other side, shrugging on a leather jacket, and when their eyes met, Dean looked - guilty? 

He walked over to Castiel's car, exhibiting not much surprise. "Making a run for it?"

Castiel was tired of feeling guilty and angry and confused and sympathetic all at the same time. "What are _you_ doing here?" He asked.

Dean blinked, and ducked his head. "This place is driving me fucking crazy. I was uh, ...kinda making a run for it." He looked up at Cas, running a palm over the back of his neck. "Not forever, just... wanted to blow off some steam."

There was a long pause. Castiel glanced around the car, then back at Dean. He raised an eyebrow.

They drove out past the claustrophobic woods, past bleak, gently rolling meadows, under an ice gray sky stained black along the edge. They drove until they reached a small town maybe thirty minutes away, and ended up idling outside a small, dingy bar. 

"Christ, I want a beer," Dean said.

"Bobby has beer." The protest sounded vacant, because he was feeling exactly what Dean was feeling - that skin-buzzing, jailbreak feeling. _Freedom._

"It's not the same when it's not being served by a hot redhead."

"How do you know the bartender's a redhead?"

"It's a fantasy, Cas," Dean said. "And in my fantasy there's a hot, curvy redhead, cold beer, a jukebox playing Metallica, and those wasabi peanut-butter pretzel things."

"We could go in," Castiel suggested.

"No we can't." Castiel sighed his agreement - it was a small town, but it was still a _town_. It had people. Witnesses. Risk. "'Cause what I really want is to play pool, hustle some like the old days, wait for some drunk asshole to start a fight, and..."

Castiel's mouth felt dry. "Yeah," he said. They shared a dark, hungry look. 

Dean huffed, glancing around the alley they were parked in. "Or," he said. "I could steal a car."

They got out of Bobby's car and circled the one across the way. It was a pale creamy color, with a long, boxy, triangular build. Dean appeared to recognize the make and model, running his hands over it before popping the hood, his fingers tangling familiarly through her insides. Castiel shifted in place with a distinct feeling of jealousy.

"A Monaro. '70s, looks like," Dean said with a whistle. "A beaut. I was gonna get something like 'er for Sam a few years back, but that loser got a bike instead. An actual bike, not a bike-bike."

The soft fondness on his face was spoiled by the flash of pain. "How is Sam?" Castiel asked.

"Circling the drain." 

"I'm sure we'll find something."

"We were supposed to find your sister," Dean said, then looked up. "Uh - shit. I didn't -"

"I'm fine," Castiel said. Dean just looked at him. "She's been dead a long time. This just... changes the middle. Not the end."

"Still."

"It's not surprising," Castiel said. "This is how we deal with deserters."

"Yeah," Dean said. He frowned. 

The sound of bottles falling heralded the arrival of a drunk omega into the alleyway via the back door of the bar. He was yelling at whoever had opened the door for him, and tossed the jacket they threw at him on the ground, despite the chill in the air. He turned towards Dean and Castiel, smacking his lips and plucking at his thin, beer-stained t-shirt, and scowled.

Castiel did not speak whatever language he swore at them in, but he understood the gist. He advanced on them, unsteady but quite motivated, seeming to have deduced what they were planning to do with his car. Dean held up his hands, placating, but the omega took a swing at him as soon as he was within reach, and made up for his drunkenness and their skill with aggression so fierce it bordered on rabid. Dean cursed, laughing, as between them they held him off, then began to throw in light punches and kicks when he still wouldn't submit, and then hit him quite solidly until he'd fallen to the floor, then continued to kick and punch until Castiel gasped, "Dean," and pulled his fist away, both theirs covered with blood, and it broke the spell they'd been under.

Castiel checked to make sure the omega was still breathing before they sprinted to their car and then swiftly out of town, less the fear of getting caught spurring them on than the schoolboy thrill of having pulled a prank and gotten away with it. They laughed all the way home, not really talking, just Dean's eyes sparkling as he fiddled with the radio, Castiel shushing him even though there were no other cars on the road and he had never made that sound before in his life, making Dean laugh even harder, the same key as the low rumble of the engine and the buzzing of insects outside.

Cas felt lightheaded when he stepped out of the car, then recoiled at the foul smell of the garage. It was gone a second later as Dean pinned him to the car, leaning down to kiss him, pressing hard, his teeth nearly drawing blood. _That_ was what the garage had smelled like - like a cold, blank slate after the scent that had been building in the car, the silky, delicious capsaicin scent of Dean's heat. When had Dean gone into heat? How had Castiel not noticed? Dean was pulling his hair, muscling him into the car, nose in Castiel's neck pulling in his scent like it was the only air in the room. There was barely any left in Cas's lungs, but he mustered what was left to wheeze, "Stairs."

Dean's fingers were under his clothes, peeling them off, leaving him hotter instead, but before Cas could return the favor he shoved him onto the bed, quickly stripping himself. Twenty nine days out of the month Castiel managed to kid himself that Dean was just as alluring off his heat as on, but his scent now, the shape of him caging over Castiel, the light in his eyes put the lie to the thought that Castiel could ever stop wanting him, even for a moment, even for a breath. Dean was a magnet and Castiel's iron blood called for him, made his hands shake as they struggled towards him, helpless as Dean kept him pinned him in place. He was definitely slurring some string of nonsense words as Dean made the bed heave, the headboard knocking against Castiel's shoulderblades and leaving bruises. Castiel scrabbled to try to help and Dean pushed him away, screwing up his eyes as he chased it, looking just this side of frustrated when Cas seized up and came and that seemed to push him over, a surprised _oof_ and he was shaking his head like it had come and gone almost without him noticing.

Castiel fought to catch his breath as he pushed himself up against the headboard, the sound harsh in the silence. Dean was fidgeting in Castiel’s lap, like he always did when they were finished and still tied together. Normally Castiel apologized for it. But this time, he slurred, "No."

Dean said nothing. Castiel licked his lips. He felt drunk. "No, you can’t go anywhere. You have to sit here and take it."

Dean's eyes flitted up to his, quick, then away, and he shifted again. "You took my knot," Cas said, "now you have to sit here and let it tie us together. Let it stop you up so you get every drop of my come."

Dean's nails tightened, dug into his arms. "Let it sit in you," Cas said. "Seep up and catch in you." 

Dean still said nothing, but one of his hands shot up to grab the back of Castiel's neck. For half a heartbeat Cas thought it was an attack, but it just rested there, so Castiel lifted a hand of his own and rubbed his thumb gently over Dean’s lower stomach. 

Dean started to pant, loud like it'd cover up the other noises climbing his throat. He twitched, moving restlessly, from just the firm little strokes of Castiel's finger, the thought that Cas was pushing him, pushing on him from the outside, pushing him toward the come he was holding inside with his knot, and, despite his pills, despite everything, _forcing_ him to get pregnant. Dean shuddered and came again like it'd been pushed out of him, tacky and hot on Castiel's stomach, his nails clawing into the back of Cas's neck, and Cas's eyes rolled back in his head at the thought of the mark he was leaving there. 

This time Dean fell asleep first, Castiel dragging fingers through the damp hair at the base of his skull.


	7. Chapter 7

"I'm just saying, you could've taken me with you."

"You _want_ to be doing this?" Castiel asked. Charlie peered down at him from the outskirts of the muddy, shit-stained pit, looking extremely clean and smelling pleasantly like the tea she was sipping.

"No," Charlie said. "But you didn't even _ask_ me. I heard you defaced a priceless landmark?"

"If we'd asked you, you would have come with us, and if you'd come with us, Bobby would have put you to work on the septic tank and the kitchen grout and the dead mice in the crawl space." He frowned. "Wait, what priceless landmark?"

"You ran over it in that car you nabbed. This was after you had immoral relations with the town's beta whore."

Castiel squinted up at her. "There are only five people living in this house, two of us were actually there, and one of you is _Bobby._ How is there gossip?"

"Telephone game, baby," Charlie said, chewing on her straw. "You know how it goes."

Castiel grimaced and shoveled more shit. "I haven't seen Dean covered in unspeakable filth."

"Bobby likes Dean," Charlie said. "And what do you mean, you haven't seen him? I thought you guys were, y'know. Better now."

Castiel thrust the shovel into the dirt hard enough to lean on it and wipe his brow. Charlie whistled at the silence. " _Still_ weird, huh?"

"Yes, Charlie," he sighed. "It is still weird." It was... different weird. Still distant. Possibly worse. But possibly better? Of course, any lightness in Dean that he caught glimpses of these days was probably not so much attributable to a thaw in their relationship, but -

"Oh, god," Sam said, appearing over the rim of the hole and wafting his nose. "This reeks."

Charlie snorted. "You're one to talk."

"Sam," Castiel said. "Should you be up?"

"I'm fine. The fresh air does me good," he said, tipping his head back to face the sun. He already looked stunningly better - he'd been improving in leaps and bounds since they'd been able to get him healthy enough to keep food down. They'd been worried they were on the brink of losing him before they'd finally gotten the alpha blood concoction right; now they were onto the process of weaning him off. "Or, I thought it'd be fresh," Sam added.

"It will be soon," Castiel said, tinkering around in the mud to find the tank's broken mechanism.

Sam whistled. "Bobby still mad about your jailbreak, huh?"

"I'm betting this is the last of it," Charlie said. "In the beginning he was inventing horrible stuff for you to do, but this thing's really broken. Clearly."

"He was inv -" Castiel stopped and took a slow yet shallow breath. "Sam, you should warm up for your exercises while I'm working. I'll be showered and ready to go by the time you're done."

"Uh huh," Sam said doubtfully. "I might read for a bit first."

"Sam -!" Castiel shouted, but he'd wandered off already. 

"Chill out, _dad._ " Charlie said.

"What?"

"You're very protective lately."

"It only makes sense for me to help with his PT, since I was most recently -"

"No, no, I get it," she said. 

"What?" Castiel asked.

Charlie shrugged. "I dunno." She was twirling her tea with her straw. "I'm gonna go somewhere less fetid. Laters."

"Charlie!" He called, but there was only bright sunlight pouring in along the edge of the pit.

By the time he was done the sun was setting. Once he'd cleaned off he went looking for Sam; turning a corner in the kitchen, he ran into Dean, hunched over, arms laden down with food, and - 

He stiffened, because Dean was in heat. Except it wasn't his usual, first blast of heat, but...

Dean hurried past him with nothing more than a grunt. He sniffed the scent he'd left behind - it smelled like Dean on his _second_ day of heat. Except he knew for sure he hadn't been in heat yesterday. He'd seen him, irascible and brooding as ever.

So it was Dean's first day of heat, and it was... mild. Castiel turned, chasing the scent - just as lovely as his full heatscent, and from behind he could see Dean's shoulders clearly still hunched with tension. But his scent was thinner, roomier, like a warm, crackling fire instead of a nuclear bomb. He met Dean's eye as he climbed the stairs, and Dean paused for a moment before giving him a curt nod. Castiel nodded back in a daze. Dean jogged the rest of the way to his room and slammed the door.

Dean was in heat, and he was ignoring him.

Castiel continued on his hunt for Sam, a tiny spring in his step.

*

The cabin sometimes seemed timeless; there were barely any windows, and the days were long, impeding his natural sense of time. He measured his days in reports finished, files combed through, how often Bobby got to the bottom of a bottle and muttered in disgust.

Six or seven hours into a marathon research session, Sam pitched forward and nearly hit his head on the table.

"Whoa," Dean said, reaching for him, his hands moving briskly over Sam's chest, forehead, neck, searching for the problem, banked panic in his voice. "Woah, woah, you okay?" 

"Yeah, yeah," Sam said blearily, leaning back. "Seriously, Dean, I'm fine. Just tired."

"It's late," Bobby said. "Why don't you get to bed?"

"I want to finish this -" Sam said, pawing through some sheets.

"I'll get it," Charlie said, tugging them toward her.

"Yeah, c'mon. Bed for you, big guy," Dean said, slinging an arm under Sam's shoulder.

"Dean," Sam said curtly, a wealth of childhood arguments and resentment in the single word. It seemed to evaporate a second later as Dean pulled him to his feet, the weight of the hours and perhaps his ordeal catching up with him. Then he sneezed. "Ugh, dude, you couldn't have stayed in your room one more day?" Castiel was surprised Sam had noticed the last of Dean's heatscent, soft and subtle. 

"Yeah, yeah," Dean said as they staggered down the hall. Bobby got up to find a fresh bottle, and Charlie ruffled through some papers listlessly. Castiel rubbed the inside of his elbow.

Dean was all business when he returned to the table. "Guys, we gotta find something."

"We will," Bobby said.

"He's not gonna last like this," Dean insisted.

"He's doing okay," Charlie said.

"No, Dean's right," Bobby said. "We have two orgs after us the size and temperament of rogue states. Cas's rut ain't a long-term plan for Sam, and there's the small matter of you two maybe being in the background of some townie's selfie that's up on the jumbotron at Luke or Mike HQ right now."

"Bobby -" Dean started wearily.

"I'm agreeing with you, kid," Bobby said. "We need a plan. We're in the weeds here," he said, pushing a thick arm through their accumulated research until it piled up at one end of the table, leaving the rest bare. "Let's go back to basics. What've we got?"

Dean sighed. "Michael and Lucifer. Two families."

"Two _empires_ ," Charlie corrected. "Pit 'em against each other?"

"That's what Mike's been trying to do," Bobby said, shaking his head. "Luke won't bite."

"Okay, then we lure Lucifer out," Charlie said.

"They already tried that," Dean said. "They sent Cas to kill Sam. Lucy took a huge risk hiding him, he won't try that again now that we busted him out and Cas almost led Mike straight to him."

After the awkward pause, Castiel said, "That leaves Michael."

Everyone fell silent for another fruitless spell.

"I thought we had a lead with - um -" Charlie faltered, her eyes skittering away from Cas.  
"But I - I'm hitting a wall here. Mike's organization is huge, well-staffed, and well-funded. I can siphon some cash, some intel off them, sure, but taking down the whole family?"

"Blackmail?" Dean suggested.

"Uh, as a person Michael died a few decades ago, according to his public records," Charlie said, clicking around on her computer. "He has no digital footprint. He's not _there_. You can't expose him, and the only people who know he's real won't cross him."

"Can we buy our way out?" Dean asked.

"Nothing they want besides us on the dinner table," Bobby said.

"Stop watching Hannibal, Bobby," Charlie said.

"Don't know what yer talking about," Bobby said, ears red.

"What about the cops?" Dean asked. No one spoke, then as a group they broke into chuckles. Dean got up from the table and stretched, a trace of that barely-there, lingering heatscent passing over Castiel as he leaned across the table to collect some junk. Castiel tried not to close his eyes.

"Be right back," Dean said, plucking up a last few pieces of litter and disappearing down the hall. Charlie'd turned her computer to Bobby and was pointing at something on it, their heads close together. Castiel got up and followed Dean around the corner to the compost room.

"Dean," he said, leaning against a post.

Dean glanced up, tying off a garbage bag. "Yeah?"

"I, uh - I just wanted to say - " 

"Spit it out," Dean said, tightening the loops of the bag.

"You seem better," Castiel said. "And I'm... glad."

Dean turned, finally looked at him, and frowned, but there was some amusement to it. He set the bag down, dusting his hands."I gotta say, that's the first time someone's thanked me for _not_ fucking them."

Castiel ducked his head. "You know what I mean."

"Yeah," Dean said. "It's all good. Feel like my head's on straight for once."

Castiel smiled at him. "Good."

Dean picked up the bag, his movements slowing, squinted at Castiel's face closely, then pushed outside with a brief jerk of his head, _follow me_. Castiel followed uncertainly. He was shocked when they crossed outside how dark it was, how cold.

Dean was laughing as he threw the garbage over the lip of the dumpster, little huffing, disbelieving chuckles that set Castiel's hair up as he turned toward him. "Are you, uh. Are you taking _credit_?"

"Credit?"

"For _fixing_ me?" Dean asked, hard-edged.

"No," Castiel said, horrified.

"Because you and me?" Dean said as if Castiel hadn't spoken. "We're nothing."

The night air was frigid, but there was a fury in Cas, hot and unquenchable. "We're mates." 

"Mates don't exist." 

Castiel took a step backwards. "You thought my family didn't exist." 

"I wish neither did." 

Castiel stared at the ground. He had no idea what to say, nor why he felt like he was falling straight through the thick soil underfoot. 

When he looked up, still with no words, Dean was staring off into the distance.

"Dean?" Castiel said, his voice hoarse.

Dean blinked back at him. "What?"

"What is it?" Castiel asked.

Dean shoved past him, back inside. Bobby and Charlie were still powwowing, and Cas ran to catch up. "Dean?" Bobby asked.

"I know how we're gonna do this," Dean said, and the room went quiet. "I know how we're gonna take 'em both down."


	8. Chapter 8

Castiel had flown hundreds of times before, but a genuine smile from the check-in employee, free of pity or awkwardness, was new. Castiel's nose pegged this one as a beta, and there was a depth to the man's grin as he bade him a safe flight, a straightness in his spine, that told him he'd scented him in turn.

All those "alpha days" of training back with Hannah and Naomi, that handful of days in Todos with Dean, and he'd never felt as exposed - as _on-the-spot_ in his status - as he did now.

Of course, the exposed feeling could have something to do with the fact that he was flying commercial from Reykjavik to JFK, passing a few hundred security cameras and cell phones on the way. It was no surprise when he was told to step aside by some airport guards immediately upon landing, his luggage carried along behind him by a blank-faced steward.

Michael's employees - the grunts, not field agents like Castiel - were in suits, as they always were, dark in the falling twilight and the shadow of the 747. "Castiel," one said with a cruel grin, pulling a handgun from his suit jacket.

"I'd like to speak to Michael," Castiel said.

The grunt blinked. "You what?"

One of his compatriots came scurrying up to him, whispering in his ear, just as with a great mechanical groan the door leading to the luggage hold of the plane began to descend behind them. The grunt with the gun gestured, and a few seconds later Dean and Sam were led out of the hold, already in ziptied cuffs, a few more of Michael's people at their back with guns drawn.

The grunt sneered at Castiel. "Your cavalry?"

"I said, I'd like to speak to Michael."

The grunt scoffed. "His orders were pretty clear." He raised his weapon, closing one eye as if scouting his preferred target on Castiel's body. Castiel had to fight to suppress a sigh.

"I have a proposal he'll want to hear," he said.

"And why should we believe you?" The grunt said, smirk not quite covering up his hesitation. "What if you're stalling?"

"Then you'll kill us," Cas said exasperatedly. Dean smothered a grin.

The grunt narrowed his eyes at them.

*

They were piled into an unmarked gray van, and they rode for about an hour. When they were unloaded onto a busy street, Castiel was startled to recognize Dream Away. He asked the grunt behind him, "What?"

He received a shove in response, though not toward the Dream Away entrance - to the small business entrance off to the side.

The filed in, Castiel craning his head to take in the grand marble lobby. “Of course,” he mused. “It was never just the underground lair. We owned the skyscraper on top as well. All this time..." he turned to the Winchesters. "He was right above me.”

“Shut up,” one of the grunts said, manhandling him into the elevator. Dean glared.

They got off on the top floor, a typical cubical spread. As they walked down the halls, all around were the sounds of an office building - chatter, coffee being made, copies piling onto a tray. Except there didn't seem to be any people in the offices, walking down the halls, huddled in the stairwells - anywhere. 

But there was someone in the corner office they were brought to - a light-filled, wood-paneled room, crisp and cool. Michael looked far younger than he must have been, with a boyish face, hearty physique, and only a few gray streaks in his brown hair. Somehow his youth and vigor made Castiel uncomfortable, like looking directly at him made his vision swim. 

Sam, on the other hand, was drinking in the sight of Michael, nearly vibrating with energy. Michael approached him first. "Sam Winchester," he said. "You have your mother's eyes."

Sam said nothing, though his lips thinned. Michael nodded. "I did what I could for her."

Dean must have made some kind of movement, because one of the guards tugged on his elbow, keeping him in place. Michael shook his head at them and walked away, toward Castiel.

"Castiel," he greeted him. "I'm glad you did this - came to me directly. It was bold, and gives us a chance to speak one last time." He was warm and gracious, as if every gun around them didn't have the safety off. "I'm told you had some last words?"

"Not last words. A proposal."

Naomi, in the background, snorted. Michael ignored her. "A proposal?"

"Yes," Castiel said. "To kill Lucifer."

Michael dropped his head, as if Castiel had disappointed him. "Castiel," he sighed. "Do you understand what has kept this family strong, kept it together, for so long?" He didn't wait for a response before clasping Castiel on the arm and answering, "Loyalty. Order. Knowing one's place."

Castiel had no idea what to say. "And...?"

"You? Do not kill Lucifer. I will," Michael said firmly. "And I think it was this..." He winced. " _Quirkiness_ that landed you in the trouble you find yourself in now. I understand, Castiel. You had a terrible childhood. You never got to enjoy the natural pleasures, the comfort of belonging, that most of us did. You came to it late, and I - we tried to help you."

Cas took a deep breath. "I know," he said evenly. "I came here to help the family."

"Really?"

"I want _you_ to kill Lucifer," Castiel said carefully. "And in exchange for letting us walk free, I can draw him out."

He could see the moment Michael's doubts budged slightly - eliminating Lucifer ranked far, far higher than the illusory pleasure killing Castiel would bring. Still, his tone was mild as he asked, "Oh?" 

"Lucifer is banking on us defecting to him once you’re gone." Michael said nothing, though his eyes took on a gray tinge. "What if we didn’t? What if you named a new heir, one who would keep everything exactly as it is now?"

"Who?"

"Me."

Naomi pushed out of her chair, but Michael held up a gentle hand. "You?" He asked. "A junior, insubordinate, frankly, deformed - "

"I’m a direct blood heir, I’m an alpha, and my mate is the son of your top lieutenant." Michael looked at Dean, but Castiel continued: "The pup he’s carrying would finally unify our family and the Campbells."

"You've whelped him?" Michael asked, arching an eyebrow. Everyone turned to Dean, who was still glaring back at them, but had now taken on a pink tinge. Castiel tried to make his own gaze impartial, and turned back to Michael after only a glance. Michael's nose was twitching, lightly scenting Dean, though he'd hardly be smelling whelped even before he'd started to show.

"As I said. I'm an alpha," Castiel answered. "Think about it: everything our family has to offer, and everything you tried to bring to us with Mary." Michael was frowning, seeming intrigued despite himself. "In a way, it’s surprising you didn’t think of it sooner."

"Perhaps that's because you've been on the run for the better part of a year," Naomi said. "And there was the matter of you nipping off to help Dean in Mexico in direct defiance of orders."

"All the more reason naming me as your heir would infuriate Lucifer, making him more likely to come out and strike."

Michael sat down, picking up a lowball glass from a nearby table. "Lucifer is arrogant. He's certain our troops will default to him once I'm gone."

"Some might," Castiel said. "But Lucifer won't risk the chance that some would remain."

"You're so certain they would?" Naomi asked. "You think you're who they'd choose as Michael's successor."

"Perhaps. But Lucifer won't focus on that," Castiel said. "He'll be thinking about the man who cut him out of line to the throne, and Mary Winchester’s son bearing his pup. He hated her. And now her bloodline will be royalty, casting him aside. It’ll force him to act."

Michael shrugged, terrifyingly. "Maybe. I'm an old man, Castiel. I don't have time for maybe." 

The guards were inching closer to them. It wasn't working. "Then we would need to up the stakes," Castiel said. "Name me your heir, and at the coronation, to prove my loyalty to you, I'll kill Lucifer's son."

Sam jerked in his cuffs. Dean said, "What?"

"It would eliminate any doubt as to my loyalties, and it would enrage Lucifer," Castiel said. "You think someone supplanting him as heir while murdering his son won’t be enough to draw him out?"

"Cas, what the hell?" Dean raged, held back now by two guards.

Michael sized him up consideringly, ignoring the Winchesters' ruckus. After a long silence, he said, "Good plan, Castiel. We'll give it a try. If it works, you and your mate can walk free."

"No - no!" The guards were wrestling Dean and Sam into submission, dragging them away, as Dean screamed, "Castiel, you son of a bitch, this wasn't part of the plan - "

"Careful not to damage the omega!" Michael shouted after them.

Castiel shuddered. Naomi offered him a drink.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by the incomparable [scaramouche](http://archiveofourown.org/users/scaramouche), who is - well, you guys know who she is.

Once Michael signed off on the plan, things moved quickly - it took only two days to set the wheels in motion for the grand announcement. "Are you sure this will be enough time?" Castiel asked. "To let Lucifer make his plans?" 

They were touring the massive warehouse Hannah had scouted for the affair. "He'll already have tracked your flight into town, and that you were taken by us," Naomi replied, signing a clipboard. "Dawdle any longer and we'll make him suspicious."

They came to a stop before a stage that was being rapidly retrofitted by Michael's team, a huge backdrop being hauled up on pulleys. "Hannah, walk us through this," Michael said over his shoulder.

"Of course, sir," she said, drawing level with them. "Castiel, you'll stand right there, and Michael, your podium will be exactly in the center. After your speech, you'll sign the paperwork over there, we'll take a nice photo off over there, and Castiel, you'll cut Sam's throat right there." She was pointing to the very edge of the stage, empty now but for the oversized logo of one of their family's legitimate businesses on the backdrop rippling behind it.

"I see," Castiel said.

"Excellent work," Michael told Hannah, and strode off with Naomi to meet Zachariah and some other family elders.

Once they were alone, Hannah led him to the far end of the building, looking out on the West River. Cars crawled by beneath thick green factory-belched smoke, but they would all be diverted by the next morning. "How are you, Castiel?" She asked.

He opened his mouth, considered his reply, and settled on, "I've changed."

"I hope you know what you're doing," she said.

"Me too," he said.

*

"Our family is strong - without peer - because alpha, beta, and omega: we all know our place. That's how families are built. That's how empires are built."

The sea of faces before Michael were eager, messianic, and hungry, like shareholders in death. From behind, Michael's shirt was plastered to his back with sweat, though his voice rang loud in the room. Castiel wondered if anyone even knew he was sick.

"Castiel has helped us build that empire. You may have heard things about him," Michael said, as if he and Naomi hadn't been the ones spreading those rumors (accurate as they might have been). "He has endured trials to be here today," Michael turned to him, pointing. "To have returned to us, bringing us a small offering, symbolic of a long road ahead."

The deafening silence was their family's version of thunderous applause - all that rapturous attention focused on them, worshipfully deferential. They led Castiel through the motions in a daze - shaking Michael's hand, signing something, the cold shock of a flashbulb - when suddenly it was quiet again, and he was standing before Sam. 

He was on his knees, facing a massive, near-flat hammered-silver pan, gleaming in the harsh spotlights. His hair was dirty and unkept, falling in his face, and his hands tied behind his back. A low-level soldier stood behind him, a hand on his shoulders to keep them bent. Castiel couldn't see his eyes.

A cleared throat - from whom he wasn't sure - had him moving forward, the soldier behind Sam seamlessly moving aside so that Castiel could take his place. On a small table to their right was a dagger. Castiel picked it up, the leather cool in his palm.

The hall was quiet enough that Castiel could hear every time someone in the audience shifted in their seat. He took a fistful of Sam's hair and pulled him backwards, his neck taut. He rested the fist with the knife on Sam's shoulder, the blade close enough to catch blooms of heat from his skin. He could just see the edge of Sam's left eye now, and all he could get from his angle was a hint of the Winchesters' familiar confidence.

Castiel raised the knife with his right arm, and someone shot him in the left one.

The room erupted into chaos. For Castiel, the impact with the ground was more jarring at first than the pain of the gunshot, though that set in quickly enough. Judging by the fact that he could still move his arm it had gone through and through, though he did wish whoever shot him would've aimed somewhere his kevlar was covering. The stage swarmed with bodies, some panicked, some purposeful and malevolent.

Sam was kneeling beside Castiel, frantically working on the rope tying his wrists as the floor shook underneath them with the force of running and the embers of violence. The curtain behind them rippled, and Lucifer appeared. "Sam!" Castiel shouted hoarsely.

Sam jerked, and Lucifer grabbed his arm, dragging him stumbling away. He was as vitally handsome as Castiel remembered, though with sweat on his brow. Castiel pushed himself to his feet, cursing as a throb of pain made his arm give out under him, causing him to overbalance. Sam struggled in Lucifer's grip as screams echoed around them, low and agonized. Lucifer was intent on his destination, a dark gap in the curtains that seemed to be from where he had come, but glanced back once in irritation at Sam's resisting. When he turned back, Michael was in front of him. 

Michael gripped Lucifer's neck in both palms and wrung, forcing out a mechanical hiss. Lucifer tore at his hands, but Michael's eyes were wide and his lips pulled back, the flimsy semblance of humanity slipping off, leaving nothing but a shimmering skull, timeless and lifeless and set on having its way in this if nothing else. Even Sam looked on in horror, temporarily distracted from trying to free himself. The polish fell off Lucifer like flesh off a rotting corpse as he scrabbled at Michael's grip. There were agents of Lucifer everywhere, engaging Michael's troops and slicking the floors with blood, as the two most important figures in their family faced each other, and no one noticed.

Castiel clamped a hand to his arm, trying to staunch the bleeding, fished a garrote from his pocket, and looped it around Michael's neck. With his arm compromised and Michael's incredible strength, he only managed to pull him back a few inches, but it was enough to set Lucifer gasping for air. Sam was biting on the ropes at his wrists, tugging his arm free of Lucifer's limp grip as Castiel grit his teeth and pulled tighter at the wire. Past Michael's body, he could see Lucifer catching his breath and Sam rising to his feet, hands finally free.

Michael snapped his head back, blinding Castiel with pain, and broke free of his hold. Castiel swayed, trying to shake the interference from his vision. Nearby, someone was grunting, mid-fight, but when Castiel blinked his eyes open Michael was looming over him, fist tight and raised. 

Gunfire sprayed across them. Michael dodged, unhit, but Dean had made it to the stage by then. Behind them, Sam and Lucifer were in a fistfight, blood at Sam's mouth and Lucifer favoring his right leg. 

Castiel shook his head and leapt up, joining Dean against Michael. The room stank of fury and fear, so heavy and bitter it was hard to concentrate, but he made himself push it all away. He and Dean were seasoned and very, very efficient, but Michael was a bullish fighter, holding them off as easily as if he was facing just one, and terrifyingly strong. Castiel gasped when he got a hand onto Cas's arm and dug in, cruelly. "Pathetic," he whispered, as Cas was forced to his knees. 

It gave Dean the opening for a vicious kick to the temple, and Michael crumpled, at least for the moment. 

Dean looked down sharply at Castiel's pained note as he foolishly tried to use his bad arm. Behind them, Lucifer's face was nearly entirely obscured by blood, and he had been reduced to clinging to one of Sam's wrists. Sam's veins stood out, stark, that poison Lucifer had been feeding him still lending his blows an extra bit of ferociousness. "Dean," Cas said.

Dean saw where he was nodding and dove for the abandoned ceremonial blade, grabbing it and shouting, "Sam!"

Sam glanced up and caught the blade easily, arcing down in the very next motion to bury it in Lucifer's chest. Lucifer' s eyes widened, as if he had only just realized he was losing. Sam leaned down to whisper something, then brought the blade down, disemboweling him.

And then the roar of noise around them punctured, gasps and screams from the crowd eking in and growing by the second. Out amongst the chairs before the stage the fight was still raging, Lucifer's people by turns wailing their grief and going berserker with rage.

"Oh, crap." Cas turned at the sound of Dean's voice, then in the direction he was looking.

Michael was gone.

Castiel pushed himself up, clenching his jaw against the pain, and searched. The audience was a frothing mass, Michael wouldn't have had a clean escape - and the rest of the stage was almost as bad, half the family dignitaries hiding or whimpering in distress, the other half engaged with the few of Lucifer's people who'd made it onstage.

There was, however, a slight flutter in the curtain backdrop.

Cas pulled it aside, revealing double-doors that were still gently swinging. He nudged them open, leaning to peer down the dark corridor they led to. A few doors down the corridor was Hannah, looking pale. "Castiel," she said.

"Where did he go?" Castiel asked. Behind him, Sam called, _Dean - help me with the head._ Hannah jerked her head behind her, further down the hall.

Castiel glanced back at what he could see of the stage - bodies were swarming it, occasionally dropping as Bobby and whoever else they'd called in as backup took people out from the rafters. No one else seemed to have noticed Michael's escape, or Castiel's pursuit.

He set off down the corridor.

*

It wasn't often he and Sam had to take a head in for chit. Hell, they usually managed to bring bounties in alive, but in the rare event things got messy, a thumb or an eye usually sufficed.

Heads were messy. Sam was learning that the hard way, hacking away at Lucy with the same slippery knife he'd used to gut him. "Need a bone saw," Dean told him, crouching close by.

"Dean, do you _see_ a bone saw?" Sam snipped at him, brow covered in sweat. Dean shrugged, tracking the horde still onstage. It was tumultuous, but things seemed to be on the downswing, stabilizing as Lucifer's people lost ground faster and faster.

Sam sighed shortly and sat back on his heels, the knife clattering to the ground. "Sam?" Dean asked.

Sam sniffed, lifting the knife again, knuckles white around the handle. "I'm fine. Just, y'know. Adrenaline."

Dean eyed him. "No regrets?"

That got a snort. "Hell no." 

Sam had the knife to flesh again, sawing determinedly through, and where his other hand was gripped in Lucy's shirt, keeping him steady, it was close enough to the collar that their skin nearly overlapped. The shade, the texture, even the way both sets of veins bugged out unnaturally from whatever that shit was Lucifer'd been feeding him - it was so damn similar it was eerie. "You're not him," Dean said. 

"I know," Sam said quietly.

Their chick-flick moment was mercifully interrupted by a stray, foaming-at-the-mouth Lucy acolyte rushing them, who gave Dean the chance to bust out his too-little-used throat-punch. Sam smirked at him afterwards, as the guy lay there gagging. "Watch it - you don't want to agitate 'lil Deanna and Cas Jr."

"Ha ha," Dean drawled. "Wait, twins?"

The head was off by now, and Sam was wrapping it carefully in a ripped-off length of curtain. "Just trying to give you an excuse for your, y'know," he said, nodding at Dean. "Beer gut."

"You son of a bitch," Dean growled.

"Mood swings," Sam sing-songed.

"Shut up."

God help him if he ever _did_ get pregnant. Being in that office with Michael and the others sizing him up like a damn broodmare - it's a miracle he hadn't killed them all right then. And once they'd been taken into custody it'd gotten worse - Sam they'd thrown around like normal, the Winchesters had been held more times than they could count, but _Dean_ they handled with kid fucking gloves, all _please_ and _take your time_ and _are you comfortable?_ They'd even given him nicer _food_ than Sam - _softer_ food, all this microbiotic crap and vegetable mush, which he'd shoved at Sam as soon as they'd left. The worst was when they'd brought him prenatal pills, which he'd been dubious about taking until Sam'd told him they were safe even if you're not pregnant. They'd still gone down like acid.

These few days, it'd been a hard reminder of how much worse he could've had it than back at the cabin. It'd been hell going through his first heats in decades - searingly harsh after so long suppressed, so bad he could barely remember 'em afterward. He wasn't totally out of control on his heat, but he'd take knives, drowning, _any_ other kind of torture before what heat turned him into - the worst kind of sickness, like his body was trying to crawl out of its skin, so broiling desperate he could feel the begging clawing up his throat. 

But being paraded in front of Cas's psycho family as _the omega_ was a million times worse. He'd _never_ believed in matebonds - not just because the whole idea was creepy as fuck, but because his and Sam's life was on the road, doing the kind of shit omegas were supposed to faint at the sight of. Cas may have fucked him over, been the last person he wanted to see him on a heat after Todos, but at least he'd never acted like he was weak or helpless, never taunted him for needing Cas on those awful first days, had never treated Dean like he was Cas's to command.

The mood of the room was rolling back like a wave to sea as the last of Lucifer's troops were finally put down. They'd put up a good fight, poured all their screaming crazy into it, but Michael's people outnumbered them five to one. Those same people were staring at him and Sam more and more now, and when Sam stood with Lucifer's head a small phalanx of them started to approach, unsettlingly blank. Dean grimaced and palmed his gun.

"Stop!" Hannah shouted, and everyone did. Michael's people looked even more confused than Dean, and a few had thunderous expressions as they shifted between her and the outsiders.

As if testing the order, one took a step towards them. So did Hannah. "I said. _Stop._ " 

The girl stopped, then backed off, and the crowd let out its breath. Dean nodded at Hannah when he met her eye - most of these folks had likely always reported to her, not Michael. He'd be willing to be most of 'em had never _seen_ Michael. There were some grumbles as the agitators dispersed back to the clean-up effort, but the tension had faded. 

In fact, Hannah seemed so calm he wondered if she'd known about their plan - if Castiel had told her, or if she'd read him that well. He wondered how close they'd been, before all this had gone down; she was Unpresented too - or, rather, she was Unpresented, like Cas used to be. She'd known Cas in a way Dean never had. He watched as she went back to her huddle with the rest of Team Michael's top brass. 

"So. Straight to collect?" Sam asked, considering his bundled head.

"Yup," Dean said. "Shame it'll be half."

Sam was cradling the bundle, turning it this way and that as if he could see through the fabric. "Maybe we should do something else with it," Dean said slowly. Sam glanced at him. "Y'know," Dean elaborated. "Not cheapen it with money."

Sam paused, contemplative. Then he said, "No, I'm good with the money."

"Good, me too."

Hannah and her coterie had vanished, though the rest of their troops were calm in their absence - a good sign. Dean was starting to pace when they reappeared through the double-doors Cas had gone down, chasing Michael. The double-doors Cas hadn't come out of yet.

He'd seen that first bullet hit him, but he'd been running around since then, so it couldn't have been that bad, right? And Michael had been half-dead.

People were jogging over to Hannah, passing her paperwork and reporting to her in low, clipped tones. When they had finished, she looked up at Dean and crossed the stage toward them.

"Thank you," she said, in a tone that meant anything but. "You're free to go."

Dean looked at the double-doors, and back at her. "Did Cas make it?"

Hannah raised a thin eyebrow at him. "We appreciate your assistance, but this is a family matter. Castiel told me you’d made it quite clear you weren’t his mate." 

_Mates don't exist._

"Yeah," Dean said. "No. No, we're not."

"Okay then," Hannah said, and walked away.

"Dean?" Sam asked.

He could smell Cas's scent on his skin - they must have tussled at some point in the fight. Dean turned to Sam, though his eyes were still on the door. "Yeah."

"Ready?" Sam asked.

Dean made himself look away. "Yeah," he said.

So they left.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by [scaramouche](http://archiveofourown.org/users/scaramouche).

Dean had missed hamburgers. There'd been no hamburgers in the cabin, but in the real world there were so many - hamburgers dripping with cheese, covered with so many onions Sam wouldn't talk to him for a week, with bacon, obviously, crab rolls and bison burgers and _beer -_

He would've become the size of a boat if the real world didn't also have _bounties_ \- glorious work, going _outside_ and talking to anyone other than Sam, Charlie, and Bobby (not that he didn't love Sam, Charlie, and Bobby) - the first time he'd chased a perp halfway across a packed Mumbai mall and finally slammed into him, by the time Sam'd caught up he'd been nearly choking on joyful laughter, sitting on the guy's chest as he squawked for help.

It was good to be off that godforsaken rock in the middle of the Atlantic.

It was good to be back with the rest of the family - Ellen had practically throttled him when he'd walked back into the Roadhouse; they'd all checked on Garth, he'd put in some gaming time with Kevin; he'd even let Chuck tell him about his latest book for a whole five minutes. 

So he was enjoying life on the outside, and he sure as shit wasn't _rushing_ to find Castiel. Okay, maybe he'd rushed a little at the start, just finding out if Cas was alive, but once he had that grainy security cam photo, he'd taken a step back. Enjoyed the calm that real life brought, the challenge of getting the business back up and running, the privacy he'd never had at the cabin, and if he'd seen a kill here or there that happened to look like one of Castiel's, y'know, he'd thrown it up on a cork board. Or three.

And eventually things had been good so long, Sammy back on his feet fully, the business about as even-keel as it was ever gonna get, that he'd figured, well. What was the point of being a small business owner if you couldn't give yourself some vacation days.

Ireland was also technically a godforsaken rock in the middle of the Atlantic, but it was nothing like the austere chill of Iceland or the hot grittiness of Baja Sur. It was rainy. Smelled like grass and wet soil.

It eased up a little the afternoon Dean found Castiel on a rolling hill behind a church. He'd either let Dean find him there, or he was out there contemplating the nature of existence or some weird Cas shit and had a hell of a poker face, because when he turned at the sound of Dean's boots on the grass (or maybe Dean's scent), he just said, "Hello, Dean."

"You're alive."

"Yes." 

Dean tried to keep the flare of his nostrils subtle. He didn't get any rush of pheromones, no stress or fear, so he must've been off his pills again (or still) - his alpha scent wasn't there just because Dean was. He didn't seem to be scenting Dean in turn.

Scents'd always tell, but most people tried to hide theirs - wrapped it up in something else, or threw it out as a lure to distract you from what was really going on. Cas's scent was like a wrecking ball compared to most people's, or at least one of those weird, hard racquetballs, dense and deadly. Dean had smelled a lot of lust passed off as romance, and plenty of rage guys thought was lust, but at least Cas's scent, odd as it was, was only ever exactly _Cas_ , through and through. 

"Didn't want to be part of Hannah's crew?"

"No," Cas said. "Though I have... privileges." 

"And you didn't call," Dean said, getting to the heart of the thing. "Didn't write."

Cas frowned in that adorable way he had, like Dean'd started speaking Greek. "I was imprisoned with you for the better part of a year, Dean."

Dean blinked. "Okay," He said. He put the collar of his coat up, and turned to go.

"Dean - " Cas said, and when Dean turned back he had a hand up, like he'd been reaching out. "I meant - I assumed _you_ were enjoying your..." he paused, that awkward, I'm-Cas-I-didn't-come-with-your-human-vocabulary look on his face. "Freedom."

"Ah," Dean said, hands still stuck in his pockets. He didn't move.

The rain had plastered Cas's hair to his head, and it battered the exposed skin of his forehead, his neck, the backs of his hands, waking his scent in little blooms that Dean could almost see rising up, drifting to surround him, warm in the cold damp.

"So," Dean said, nodding toward him. "You've embraced the alpha life?"

Cas scowled, though his lips twitched at the same time. "I don't really think of myself as an alpha." 

Dean raised an eyebrow. "What then? Un-Unpresented?"

Castiel broke into a true smile, though a small one. "I think I'm just... Castiel." 

Dean shivered. "Why are you here, Dean?" Castiel asked.

He shrugged. "Might have a job for you." He hadn't known what he was going to say until he said it.

Cas looked - hesitant. "A job?"

"Yeah," Dean said. "If you're okay being un-Unpresented."

Cas smiled, slow and familiar. "I think I can manage."

*

It did not get more exclusive than parties held on a manmade island. Their host had literally created his own retreat off the Dubai coast, a small speck of accumulated sand connected to the beach by a thin, glittering two-way road. The partygoers seemed impressed by the isolation it provided, exchanging admirations of the view, the hors d'oeuvres, the artwork - until an alpha and omega in the corner began snapping at each other at a pitch that rose above the decorous hush.

"Don't tell me who I can talk to," Dean hissed. Heads turned in their direction.

"You were getting your scent all over that man," Castiel retorted.

Dean drew himself up. "At least that _man_ is a real -"

"Gentlemen," a waiter whispered, putting himself between them and the rest of the guests. "Please -"

"This _knothead_ -" Dean barked.

"My omega -" Castiel said over him.

A guard stepped in where the overly-polite waiter had failed. "This way," he said firmly, steering them through a staff-only door.

"Get your hands off me," Castiel said prissily. "This tux cost more than your salary."

"And this place cost more than ten of you," the guard said. "Don't worry, I'll show you out the back."

"Perfect," Dean said, when they'd made it to a small curtained-off area behind the kitchen. As soon as they were out of sight of the others, he turned on the guard and elbowed him in the temple. The man was too slow to avoid it entirely, crumpling as soon as it made contact, but fast enough that he didn’t fall exactly where Castiel had anticipated, making him stumble as he caught him, falling backwards into Dean. They paused like that for a moment, Cas draped over Dean’s arms, listening to the bustling sounds of the kitchen and waiting to make sure they hadn’t been heard. Then Dean said, “Think we’re good,” low into Castiel’s ear, and helped him up. They stashed the guard behind a curtain and quickly found the door they were looking for.

The building's courtyard was a small, ugly patch of land - perhaps it was destined to become a garden someday, but for now it was clearly nothing more than a servants' staging area, littered with industrial equipment and boxes, red dust over everything.

"Don't get your hopes up," Cas told Dean as they picked their way through heaps of scrap and extra supplies. "The manifest was weeks old at least."

"Don't get _your_ hopes up," Dean muttered. "Would've kept that son of a bitch alive if I'd known his estate would be so -"

He cut off as they turned a corner and came upon a large, boxy shape underneath a dusty tarp. Practically shaking with anticipation, Dean grasped two huge handfuls and whipped it off, revealing -

" _Baby_ ," Dean whispered, running a reverent hand along her gleaming black side.

"She's unharmed?" Cas asked drily, suppressing a smile. There was something carbonated and giddy about seeing Dean so ecstatic.

"Shut up," Dean said in a daze. "Get in."

The passenger door snicked shut behind Castiel, cocooning them in soft silence. Dean was bent forward in the driver's seat, fingers skimming over the steering wheel, the odometer, even the seatbelt, as if he were observing in his own private temple. "Finally," he breathed.

Castiel could understand his excitement - it was a beautiful car. He ran one hand along the dash, letting the other enjoy the smooth texture of the bench seat. Late afternoon light filtered through the windows, painting her simple colors in orange and pink tones. And she smelled amazing, like chrome, and diesel, and -

He turned toward Dean and breathed in again deeply, letting the scents settle into his bones, Dean's and the car's. They complemented each other, amplified each other, and as the seconds ticked by and they bled into one another, it was as if some small piece of Dean's scent that had been missing all along finally slotted into place, singing out brighter than before. It surrounded him, Dean's pleasure and comfort and thrill, like a long, slow scratch along his skin. Cas huffed, breathing out, "Oh." 

Dean double-taked from his perusal of the car, taking in Cas's hand on the dash and his posture and whatever was on his face. His eyes were glowing, and hungry now, his mouth half-open as he stared at Cas, filling the car with a heavenly scent. He leaned forward -

Shouting erupted from the opposite end of the courtyard, behind the maze of junk, along with footsteps and the sound of guns being cocked. " _Later_ ," Dean said, as Cas nodded and palmed his firearm, swiveling in his seat to get a good look at their pursuers.

Dean put the car in gear and revved the engine, a growl echoing in the courtyard. Shots peppered out across the way. Cas glanced back at Dean, whose eyes were hot with excitement. "Ready?" He asked.

Castiel grinned at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it, everyone - that's a wrap on Unpresented. Thanks so much for sticking with me on this story - I think it may be my favorite fanfic I've ever written, pretty much from the first moment I thought, "what about abo... _and_ assassins?" Anyway, I know the fic didn't always make sense to everyone; I have some ideas for potential timestamps, but honestly, I kind of love it exactly the way it is - probably too short and hopelessly emotionally uncommunicative, just like our boys. But I was thinking maybe I could do a DVD commentary-type thing on my [tumblr](http://feelsspiral.tumblr.com/), so that if anyone does have outstanding questions I could answer them there.
> 
> Or, we could let this be the end. I think it's a happy one. =)
> 
> ETA: I _did_ end up doing a series of commentary [here](http://feelsspiral.tumblr.com/post/147397980573/unpresented-dvd-commentary-the-heat), [here](http://feelsspiral.tumblr.com/post/147620424408/unpresented-dvd-commentary-unreliable-narrator), and [here](http://feelsspiral.tumblr.com/post/148430608028/unpresented-dvd-commentary-heatsex-hate-sex), and am still taking questions about it at [my tumblr](http://feelsspiral.tumblr.com/).


End file.
